I don't think anyone has ever explained to me what a caboose actually does. Care to enlighten?

In years past it was used in controlling braking, watching for problems along the trains length such as shifting loads, broken or dragging equipment, and hot boxes, Additionally it served as crew quarters, the conductor kept records and handled business from a table or desk in the caboose.

There are a lot of those white Soo cabooses running around the Chicago area.

Cool!

I bet they are getting REALLY time-worn at this point.

Surprisingly most are still bright white

Hmm, I wonder what they are doing in Chitown that's preserving them. In Minnesota they weathered pretty fast and it's not like it's that much farther north.

The last time I saw a caboose of any kind was on the Maume special work train UP ran through Spring Junction.

It had one of those bay window cabooses on it which totally surprised the hell out of me.

If you can catch a caboose, good luck because it's been about five years since i last saw a caboose in Houston area.

Yah, it's been ages since I've seen one in person.

Especially a crummy which that SOO Line caboose is because you basically lived on the things and sat up in the crow's nest watching the back of the train and making sure you were in constant communication with the crew.

I've been inside a Bay Window Caboose that ran over SP in Texas and it was fun to sit in the chairs by the window to relive something i was too young to understand.

Aw sweet picture. nice angle.

Thanks!

I miss these evenings with my little brother where we'd go out to the former Como Shops, set up lawn chairs and watch trains for an evening.

Must have been peacful to watch them.

It was, very much so.

It's amazing to me that it was nearly 20 years ago now.

wow where did the time go.

That's the strangest one I've seen so far! Yup! Cabooses are a thing of the past. I was able to see a few in use before they phased them out. I often see them at some Mc Donald's on display,or in some itty bitty town like "Wills Point,Texas"!
Now trains just have that blinking light at the tail end.

It's sorta a sad thing that they are obsolete and rarely used today.

Heaven knows how many childhood memories I have of watching trains and waving to the crew in the Caboose.

I wonder... on how many countries used these kind of cars [Caboose(s]. Except for America and Canada.

Well, in the UK they are called Guard Vans or Brake Vans, and I'm assuming they went by a similar name in Australia.

I'd guess that any country that was sufficiently along socially and technologically to have gone through the 18th and 19th century 'Industrial Revolution' probably has their version of these non-revenue cars

Wikipedia has this about the origin of the name 'Caboose'.

--
Eighteenth century French naval records make reference to a cambose or camboose, which term described the food preparation cabin on a ship's main deck, as well as the range within. The latter sense apparently entered American naval terminology around time of the construction of the USS Constitution, whose wood-burning food preparation stove is officially referred to as the camboose

It is likely that camboose was borrowed by American sailors who had come into contact with their French counterparts during the American Revolution (recall that France was an ally and provided crucial naval support during the conflict).

From this it could be concluded that camboose was part of American English by the time the first railroads were constructed. As the first cabooses were wooden shanties erected on flat cars (as early as the 1830s they would have resembled the cook shack on the (relatively flat) deck of a ship, explaining the adoption and subsequent corruption of the nautical term.
--

This caboose is a crummy which basically is a caboose with two levels where all of your creature comforts are below and your crow's nest is above so you can watch the back of the train for any problems.

Last time I saw a real crummy caboose was way back in the early 90s on UP's Palestine Sub. It was on the back of a southbound freight at a big junction near the city of Houston.

I remember the power which was pulling the train too.. Three SD40-2s.

You were still in diapers when this happened back in 1993.

I remember up in a small community called Bala a few years ago watching a fast CPR train going though and it had a caboose in the middle of the train which was quite the surprise to me.