| CABOOSE | A car which is attached to the rear of a freight train and serves as office and headquarters for the conductor and trainmen while they are in transit. Sometimes called cabin car, way car, hack, shanty, or crummy.
Major railroads have discontinued the use of cabooses, except on some short-run freight and maintenance trains. It has been replaced by the end-of-train device, a portable steel box about the size of a suitcase that’s attached to the back of the train’s last car.
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While this first picture doesn’t have any actual #RailArt on it, it is a rare sighting as cabooses are far and few between these days. It has been repainted from its traditional red to this bright white and repurposed as a Library in the Timber Country of Montana.
Once again in the picture below the #RailArt is colorful and I’m really not sure what it spells, but it is a car from the CANADIAN Pacific Railway.
It’s been a lot of years since I’ve seen a caboose. I don’t think my adult children ever saw one on a train. I remember seeing them mostly whenever we drove to my grandmother’s house, a two hour drive. The highway (no freeways) ran along side the track. There really was a man (never a woman!) at the back of the caboose, and he always returned my wave!
They certainly are far and few in between! I’ve never seen a woman conductor either.
I love the little library, it’s adorable!
It really was! It was set up in this little forested area with the library stocked for anything and everything about trees in this sleepy little Montana town. 😀