The Southern Caboose
 

The Southern Caboose & Related Information - Early Cab Info

 

Q: The Southern bay window cabooses with the solar panels, what trains were they used on? 

A: The only ones I saw in user were on local freights. I never saw one on a through freight.

Warren Calloway

More...

The solar panel cabooses on my home district (North Charlotte District, Greenville SC -Spencer NC- Albemarle NC) tended to be assigned to local freights mainly.  There were spare ones that were used on work trains and, unfortunately, on through freights if needed.  Through freights 185 & 186 (later renumbered to 337 & 338) sometimes got stuck with a solar panel local cab.  I have seen one or two other through freights with them in emergency too, but I cannot which ones.  The biggest difference between a regular cab and a local cab is the "big" radio that only the regular cab has. The local cab had no radio.  I think some had the antenna system that you could hook the old D-cell big walkie-talkies to for extra range. 

At that point in SR history it was a hassle trying to work a long through freight with an inoperable caboose radio or else a "yellow belly" local cab on the rear.   We needed communication with the rear to see if we were over slow orders, crossings, or siding switches and also to see if our tangent track wide cars were on the straight line.  Also at that time we generally only had one walkie-talkie per crew.  So if the conductor had to have the walkie-talkie for the rear (account a "yellow belly" back there), then you did not have one to use in picking up and setting off on line of road and to yard your train with at the final terminal.  The solar panel "yellow belly" cabs worked good on local freights though.

Ben Lee,  Engineer- North Charlotte District, Southern Railway
"Serves the South with Fast, Dependable Transportation"

Q:  The SOUTHERN's steel bay window cabooses of about 1960 had 4 windows in each side of the car body (not including the windows in the bays.  What >year did the SOUTHERN start blanking over the inboard side windows?

A:  The extra windows were blanked when they were rebuilt from late 1960s to early 1970s and renumbered to the X-600 and X-700 series.

Warren Calloway

Q:  I think I need some help. I've got all of the main parts of my new Cabeese trimed so they fit, but I find I'm having trouble with simple (I guess) stuff like which end is the B end? I can't figure out which end the smoke stack is on and what exactly it is over inside the caboose and for that matter which way is the interior installed anyway. Nothing looks like a stove, but then I've never been inside an active Southern Caboose. Pictures of the early (50's) cabeese are really hard to come by, especially those that show exactly how they were painted. 

In the Southern in Color volume 1 I have found one with the round herald on the bay, the others seem to be to the right of the bay above and between the side windows. Most seem to have black roofs or are they dirty roofs? Also the sides of some end platforms seem to be black while others are red. What is correct? Thanks for the discussion which I hope will begin. 

Bill Cox Amherst, VA

A:  The B-end is the end opposite the battery vent boxes. The stove is on the "A" end of the car and to the right of the battery vents. The stove could not be cast with the interior so it is a separate piece in your parts baggie along with the stove smoke jack for the roof. The interior is such that the conductor's desk in one of the corners is directly across from the interior battery boxes (door and vents seen on the outside of the body). I placed the interiors within the bodies so that the correct proportions are there so when they are removed they go back in the same way as they came out. 

Under the roof is a large dimple for drilling the stove smoke jack. If you already have the roof glued down you can always drill it from the top. Paint schemes for the cabooses is largely dependent upon which era you are modeling which is why I strongly suggest you consult photos. I'll give you that 50's style cabs aren't around as much as modern ones, but they are out there. We have some on our website from the mid 50's. 

Go to http://www.wrighttrak.com and click on the link "ON THE READY TRACK", then click on the SR herald and you'll see two photos of 50's vintage cabooses. Our website has been managed with great excellence by a good friend of mine who is no longer able to keep pace with our rapidly expanding product line due to the demands of his full time job. We are in the process of taking this over and hope to have it completely updated very shortly. Please be patient. According to the stencil diagrams we used to make the decals the standard remained the same for quite a number of years. There may be exceptions to this but they were non-standard. 

The small yellow "SOUTHERN" lettering is centered above the two windows on the left side of the bay window. The numbers are centered between the two windows. The SR monogram (or herald) is centered between the two windows on the right side with the words "THE SOUTHERN" raised above the top of the windows. In other words if you were to run a straight line from the top of one window frame to another it would come just under the rounded portion of these two words. This was the standard used until 1958. In that year the SR monogram was discontinued. 

We have evidence of this from the Hayne Shop caboose files when the first cab to leave Hayne repainted without the monogram was noted on 10/22/58 which was X2914. Paint schemes began in 1941 with the round roof eave cabooses with black roofs and black end platforms. The black roofs were done away with in the late 40's early 50's. End platforms continued to be painted black. 

All end railings including the brake stand were painted yellow. In the late 50's the end platforms were painted red. End railings were painted red except the grab irons and end vertical posts and the horizontal post running from end to end and over the top of the brake housing which was painted yellow. Sorry I could not be more the clearer in the way of exact dates of changes, but we don't have access to just exactly when these changes were made.

Gary Wright (WrightTrak Models)