Question About Cabooses.

[Kisatchie]

I was just wondering, did it matter which way a caboose faced when coupled to the end of a train? Perhaps it mattered to some railroads and not others.


Hmm... wheels to the
ground...

[Bob Bufkin]

That's a good question.  I doubt it mattered.  I've seen off-center cupola cabooses facing both directions.  As for center cupola and transfer cabooses, how could you tell the diffference anyways.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Wasn't the reason for the offset cupola to fit the bed and desk? If thats the case, then I don't think it would matter.

[C855B]

Didn't matter. Cabooses were universally designed with seats facing both ways, whether cupola or bay window. Certainly there has to be a prototype for everything re. a one-ended caboose, but it was doubtless a special situation. Anyway, could you imagine the cumulative switching costs of having to orient cabooses the right way when it was so easy for 'em to be double-ended?

[wcfn100]

It mattered in the sense of visibility/safety.  There would certainly be a preference to have the cupola towards the rear to give a better view of the train.

The CGW didn't really have offset cupola cabooses, but I read somewhere that they would deliberately place cars like tank cars or flat cars behind the locomotives and in front of the caboose because it allowed better visibility of the train.


Jason



 

[Brakie]

No..It doesn't matter which way the caboose faces.

BTW..

A fun fact.

Unlike other freight cars there is no B end since both ends has a brake wheel..

We would tell a student brakeman to set the handbrake on the A end of the caboose..

With a puzzled look he would asked which end was the A end..

The conductor would roll his eyes and ask you don't know? What are they hiring for brakeman these days? I never heard or seen the likes in my X many years on this man's railroad!

Then with a stern look he would say you choose the end you want to be the A end since a caboose doesn't have one.

And yes,that trick was pulled on me when I was a student brakeman.

[milw12]

On the flip side, I was told that the cupola should be closer to the front of the train so that the smoke jack would be behind the cupola. This keeps the smoke from obstructing the view as the train moves forward.

I'm not sure how true this is, but it seemed reasonable enough at the time.

shrubs

[Dave V]

No..It doesn't matter which way the caboose faces.

BTW..

A fun fact.

Unlike other freight cars there is no B end since both ends has a brake wheel..

We would tell a student brakeman to set the handbrake on the A end of the caboose..

With a puzzled look he would asked which end was the A end..

The conductor would roll his eyes and ask you don't know? What are they hiring for brakeman these days? I never heard or seen the likes in my X many years on this man's railroad!

Then with a stern look he would say you choose the end you want to be the A end since a caboose doesn't have one.

And yes,that trick was pulled on me when I was a student brakeman.

LOL, reminds me of tricks we'd play on new Airmen.

We'd send them over to flight ops to get a bucket of prop wash and 500 feet of flight line.

[SkipGear]

LOL, reminds me of tricks we'd play on new Airmen.

We'd send them over to flight ops to get a bucket of prop wash and 500 feet of flight line.

We still pull that one at the hobbyshop with the new guys (RC airplane props).

[hpwrick]

I knew there was something sinister about this group.

Don't know if I'd trust these guys and gals.

Let's see there was something about going fishing with my uncle, he showed me how to bait the hook and at the end of the day I was proclaimed a master ....     Didn't go over very well at school monday morning for show and tell.   

   LOL

[Bob Bufkin]

Funny Dave.  We used to pull the same things.  Send a seaman down to the engineroom for a bucket of pink steam or have someone stand on deck in rainy weather with a hook to look for the mail buoy and the enginemen used to get new recruits to go looking for a left handed monkey wrench.

[termite]

When I was training on a ductwork installation crew, my boss told me to get him a left handed screw driver. I reached into my tool box & grabbed one, whereupon he asked if I was sure it was a left handed screw driver. My reply, "It's in my left hand, isn't it?" had the others on the crew howling "Gotcha"

Alan

[Brakie]

On the flip side, I was told that the cupola should be closer to the front of the train so that the smoke jack would be behind the cupola. This keeps the smoke from obstructing the view as the train moves forward.

I'm not sure how true this is, but it seemed reasonable enough at the time.

shrubs

That was probably true back in the days when caboose had  coal burning stoves but,modern cabooses had fuel oil stoves and it didn't matter.

[jmlaboda - RIP]

"It mattered in the sense of visibility/safety."

Not really.  Unless the conductor was in an extended vision cupola caboose he would not be able to view the car sides ahead of him very well except in curves, and that to the side he was on, but it was things like smoke coming up from the lower side of cars that he would be looking for anyways to tip him off that something was wrong, that or a car side that is just a little out of alignment from the other cars, though the derailment would likely happen fairly quickly, making such an observation a mute point.  Even extended vision cabs, like baywindow cabs, were still limited in regards to how much you could see but they would have been just a little better.

"On the flip side, I was told that the cupola should be closer to the front of the train so that the smoke jack would be behind the cupola. This keeps the smoke from obstructing the view as the train moves forward."

Look at either the prototypes or the fine models that we are fortunate to have... the top of the smoke jack is above the better part of the cupola windows... and besides, properly fired, there would not have been enough smoke to obscure vision from the cupola.

[Bsklarski]

LOL, reminds me of tricks we'd play on new Airmen.

We'd send them over to flight ops to get a bucket of prop wash and 500 feet of flight line.

LOL I almost forgot about those days.