Caboose Photo 30th Anniversary

I was thinking these shots from ancient history might be worth a thousand words but resisted temptation. Maybe they're worth 500 or so. Anyway, the dates made me feel old.

The top caboose is another example of a relatively common sight while I was a cub railfan in Colorado. I knew the silver was going to give way to green eventually, but these silver guys hung on for quite a while compared to the old paint schemes on the locomotives. These extended-vision cabeese could be found anywhere on the vast BN system, and especially on the old CB&Q lines. Almost exactly thirty years ago I got around to photographing this particular silver "w/c" in Fort Collins. I have photo samples from all the pre-BN roads as they rolled through my neigborhood. They left enough of an impression that I made sure I had an example much like the one in this photo in my N scale collection. I still have to change the sub-lettering and figure out why an eastern anthracite road would have one of these on the end.

The sub-lettering for the Fort Worth and Denver was a curiosity north of Denver. I saw these just often enough to not call them rare though. Their parent company, Colorado and Southern, did similar sub-lettering on their "way cars" and this photo was taken on the C&S. It would then be no surprise to know that the C&S's parent company, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, did the same and no doubt set the tone for all. I managed many shots of all these before they got painted green for the Burlington Northern. Even with green and yellow BN paint, the FW&D and C&S sub-lettering continued into the 1980's (CB&Q became the "B" in BN) as seen below.

I like looking at all the details on these rigs, especially the older ones. Modern E.O.T.D.'s just don't have the accoutrements to be worth a photo compared to a good ole caboose. Firecracker antennas, window wipers, roofwalks, marker lights, step lights, full window assortment and the Burlington Route logo just harken back to times gone by. BN simplified things a bit as seen 15 months later on a different buggy below. They sure didn't seem like a big deal at the time. In fact, I thought these common extended-vision cars were too modern to be worthy of much film. Ironic, now.

BC