By 1973, the condition of the tracks in Marion used by Erie Lackawanna and Penn Central was rough as can be seen in this image of a westbound EL train. In the consist is a passenger car that probably is being ferried somewhere. No, the EL had not gotten back into the passenger business by running mixed trains. The Lake Cities, the last EL intercity passenger train, had ceased operating in early January 1970.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad will resume offering caboose rides starting Saturday.
The caboose will be attached to the National Park Flyer, which departs Rockside Road station in Independence for a one-and-a-half hour roundtrip excursion.
The Flyer leaves Rockside Road on Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m. and noon.
The caboose rides were last offered in early 2019 but were suspended in 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Caboose ride tickets at $25 per person. Children under the age of 3 do not need a ticket.
The caboose, which can seat up to 10 peoole, features a functional wood-burning stove and a cupola.
The trips will be offered through May 1. Historically, the caboose has only operated during the winter and spring months.
Although still painted in its Toledo Terminal livery, switcher 9300 was working for Conrail at the time this image was made. The date is March 30, 1983.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Conrail GP38-2 No. 8089 and its caboose are en route to their next assignment in Canton in May 1985. The unit was built for Penn Central in February 1973 and would later go to work for Norfolk Southern.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
They used to be on every freight train but then technology and labor reductions consigned them to a long list of things that used to be but are no more on America’s railroads.
But the caboose has a more romantic aura about it and was better known to most Americans than, say, an interlocking tower or trackside telephone booth.
Today the caboose is all but gone, primarily found on local trains. And even then it may not be a caboose per se but a shoving platform even if it used to be a caboose and still looks like one.
Shown is westbound Norfolk Southern local B23 in Goshen, Indiana, on the Chicago Line. The local originates in nearby Elkhart and works only as far east as Goshen before returning to the yard.
When I made this image on April 22, the B23 had two covered hopper cars and a caboose.
It may be battered and bruised but NS 555616 still has the classic look of a caboose and it’s still something out of the ordinary.
Various railroad related events are being planned for the Cincinnati area this spring.
These include resumption of service of the Cincinnati Dinner Train. Tickets can be purchased and other information is available at https://www.cincinnatidinnertrain.com/
The Cincinnati Railroad Club will participate in a National Train Day event on May 1.
CRRC board member Jim Corbett said the Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad has invited the club to set up a booth about/for the club.
Excursions that day will depart at trains departing at 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.
On May 15, a restored Southern Railway steel caboose, X554, will be moved in a parade down Elm Street in Ludlow, Kentucky, to a location on city property next to the city’s rail viewing platform.
The Ludlow Railroad Heritage Museum is hosting the move to the location at 49 Elm St.
A ribbon cutting ceremony is planned for May 31 at the caboose. It will be the first time the caboose will be opened to the public.
The event will be held between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and has been dubbed “Party on the Plaza” by the Ludlow Heritage Museum.
There will be food and drink options and museum merchandise for sale including green tee shirts with an image of the caboose.
I always remember Marty Surdyk using the fisherman’s term of “trolling” when hoping for a good catch.
On May 23, 2008, I had a good day of trolling during the afternoon before an Akron Railroad Club meeting. Craig Sanders and I caught a few unexpected prizes.
In Grafton as in photos one through three we caught CSX (ex Baltimore & Ohio) on the former Cleveland, Lorain & West Virginia) crossing the Big Four. Conrail units were still around but the surprise was the B&O caboose restored to excellent condition.
I also got a railfan (Craig) in the first photo. Often I did that on purpose to document who was on the scene.
Afterwards we were working our way to Spencer and we had a catch by surprise on the W&LE. Photos four and five show former Nickel Plate coaches 62 and 90 of the Midwest Railway Preservation Society being shipped to Wellington for short excursions on the Lorain & Wheeling.
Finally in photos six and seven on the former Akron, Canton & Youngstown we caught an empty Wheeling & Lake Erie stone hopper train headed back west to Carey.
Photo six was made west of Spencer while photo seven was at New London about to get on CSX (ex Big Four) on trackage rights to Greenwich.
Today I consider those heritage unit catches: Wisconsin Central, and Denver & Rio Grande Western.
I always wonder since we had good catches, did I have fish for dinner?
A wood former Wabash caboose has been rebuilt by the Indiana-based Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.
The century-old car is one of just two wooden Wabash cabooses in existence.
Restoration work on caboose No. 2534 began in 2018 and involved more than dozen regular volunteers working over three years.
The volunteer corps devoted more than 5,000 hours and replaced more than 90 percent of the structure with more than 1,000 pieces of new wood.
The caboose had been displayed between 1957 and 1984 in Swinney Park in Fort Wayne.
It was then moved to the Society’s shop in New Haven in deteriorated condition.
The CSX Wooster Turn is on its way back to Warwick and is shown here in Canal Fulton backing up from Massillon on R.J. Corman rails.
On the point is former Baltimore & Ohio caboose 903042. The date of the photograph is May 22, 1997.
The Wooster Turn used Norfolk Southern’s Fort Wayne Line between Massillon and Wooster.
Corman acquired the former B&O branch line between Warwick and Uhrichsville in 1988, and bought the 2.16-mile Wooster Industrial Track from CSX in August 2002.
The wayback machine is taking us to the late 1950s for an image from the camera of the late Ed Treesh and now part of the collection of Robert Farkas. Cherry River Boom & Lumber 9 is on an excursion train in Richwood, West Virginia, in June 1958.
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