The Caboose As A Workplace

The photo of a caboose on a 1960 steam-powered branchline freight featured on pgs. 16-17 in Winter's 2010 "Classic Trains" inspired me to start this thread (as well as an identical one on another board which has garnered some interesting replies). Haven't read a lot about working conditions in cabooses so I'll toss this out for discussion: How were cabooses? Noisy, hard-riding & dangerous? Or mostly a decent place to work? Was there much difference between riding a branchline caboose compared to one on a mainline? What kind of "amenities" would a crew have encountered?

I'm going to refer you to a book, The Railroad Caboose, by William F. Knapke and Freeman H. Hubbard. It was published by Golden West. It's one of the superior works on the topic.

Of the cabooses I rode whle working for Conrail as a brakeman in the 90's. it is a great place to work or relax and enjoy the ride. On a branch line with stick rail, the ride is clickity-clack, and on ther main at 50 mph with welded rail the ride is fast and smooth. these were done with small local trains not the mega heavy trains from the old days with full crews,maybe some older railroaders can fill you in about that.

I got a chance to ride one of those local freight cabooses (flat roof) on B & M local B-9 between West Concord and Ayer and return one cool October day in the early 1970s. Those were hard riding, incredibly noisy (couldn't hear the engine horn blasting for crossings although we only had 7 or 8 cars) and very hot. The oil stove (probably kerosene) was so powerful that you could sit inside in shirtsleeves with the windows open and you'd still sweat.

I got a few rides in the old CNJ flat top #91382 west (south) of Red Bank on the old NY&LB. It had old arch-bar trucks and rode a little rough. Great experience tho!

A lot of cabooses were personalized to their crews, and many crews were permanently assigned to the car. Curtains, cheesecake calendars, blankets and pillows on the bunks, carpet, and other comforts. The old wooden CNJ cabooses still had coal stoves right up to the end of the units in 1972.

Like a modern RV, everything you could possibly need fit in there somewhere.