Musings for the week: Caboose lengths

[NHTX]

   Some railroads offered mixed train service up until the early 1970s, carrying paying passengers in the caboose.  The cars carrying the revenue riders ranged from repurposed drover cars to Budd built corrugated streamlined coaches on the Georgia Railroad.  I imagine overflow crowds would be handled on most mixed trains by digging up an old coach or, simply tacking on an extra caboose.  The one encounter with a mixed train that sticks with me is a Santa Fe train out of Amarillo, TX, headed up the Boise City branch in 1966.  An F-7A, four assorted B-units, 96 covered hoppers and boxcars trailed by a boxcar red 85-foot, clerestory roofed steel combine in the 2600 series, similar to the car once offered in HO by AHM.  During grain shipping time that one unit, 2 or 3 car train could blossom into a monster!  Perhaps you could use it for a mixed train even if you don't handle live stock or, find a use for it in maintenance-of-way or wreck service.  Railroads were notorious for finding utilization far beyond a serviceable item's intended purpose.

[CapnCrunch]

gmpullman

Open to more comments 

Okay, I'm going to accept Ed's invitation and go off topic here.    In his post from the Library of Congress, the end railings of the caboose appear to have canvas panels attached.  This would be an interesting detail to model.  Has anyone seen such a panel before and would they be era specific?  

[doctorwayne]

CapnCrunch

...the end railings of the caboose appear to have canvas panels attached. This would be an interesting detail to model. Has anyone seen such a panel before and would they be era specific?

I've not seen the canvas panels, but would guess them to offer some protection from wheel spray from whatever car the caboose might be following.

CPRail and the TH&B used metal panels for the same purpose...

...and while I didn't cover the access to the ladder (not needed for the caboose shown above, as they date from the no-roof-walk era), I did use a "metal" panel on the non-ladder side of this modified Athearn bay window caboose, as my layout is set in the late '30s, with roofwalks on all house cars...

Wayne

[gmpullman]

Necessity being the mother of invention and all —

DTSL_120cab by Edmund, on Flickr

Just a quick survey of photos I have on hand seems to find only two out of ten had any kind of splash shield applied. I wonder if the burlap ones shown on the M. C. RR caboose were officially sanctioned or something an industrious conductor made up after one-too many soakings?

Regards, Ed

[rrinker]

 Given the age of that MC RR caboose (it has wood beam trucks!), I'd suspect the shields are the work of an enterprising conductor or brakeman.

                                   --Randy