CPR caboose...

D

doctorwayne

Active Member
Sep 6, 2005
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Canada, eh?
I was going to put this in the recently revived "Show us your caboose" thread, but thought that modellers of the CPR might be interested to see this old photo. I took the photo in September 1963, in North Bay, Ontario, mainly because I'd never seen a CPR caboose like the one in the centre. The first pic is a scan of the negative, which I think is generally of a better quality:
img336.jpg


This is a scan of the print, which more clearly shows the plated-over windows:
img332.jpg


I don't have any more info on this, except the the caboose's number appears to be 437434. I at first thought that it might be a flanger, but there's a string of boxcars on the next track back, which I think accounts for the dark shapes under both the centre and right cars.

Wayne
 
Thanks for taking a look, guys. The camera was a German-made Gevavert (?), I think - a simple box camera which took decent pictures, although I couldn't get any closer to the subject due to all the track and a lot of train movement, too.
Charlie, the scanner is an Epson V100, and seems to do a pretty good job, although I probably need to learn more about using it properly. :rolleyes: The kids got it for me for Christmas, and my youngest daughter, who's an artist, hunted around until she found an Epson. She's had several others, but feels that Epsons give the truest colour rendition, important in her line of work. Scanning negatives other than 35mm size is hit or miss, though, as I suspect the software isn't set-up to read film in larger sizes. I just placed the negative about where a 35mm would go, but you can see that some of it was cut off. Too bad, 'cause I have a box of 120 and 620 negs that I'd like to scan (no train pics, though).
I'm slowly working my way through my small collection of photos, both prototype and models, and am disappointed in the poor quality of many of them. The scanner can only fix-up so much. ;):-D

Wayne
 
60103 said:
Wayne: does the scanner do slides as well?
The caboose doesn't look CP at all; was it a replacement for one that PRR borrowed and smashed? :mrgreen:
Click to expand...

I also thought that it had a Pennsy look to it, although it seems longer.
And yes, the scanner does do slides. It also allows you to correct backlit photos, handy for shots of the TH&B in Hamilton. ;) There are a few of those HERE .

Wayne
 
I can't imagine it was being used as a caboose. Why would they remove the windows? Can you imagine working in a car like that with no windows? Maybe it was converted for use as some kind of mobile tool car or workshop.

Kevin
 
To be honest, I hadn't even noticed that the windows were covered over until I saw the scan of the print. The caboose to the left is a wooden one, which lasted in service well past 1963, so it's doubtful that they would've "wasted" a caboose when they were still using them daily. I wasn't actually railfanning when I took the photo: although I have always liked trains, and was pleased to see stuff previously unseen, I had very little knowledge of what was happening on the rail scene. I was accompanying my Uncle on a trip to various places in Northern Ontario, and was particularily excited to be seeing that area of the country. :-D

Wayne
 
The caboose may not be a caboose but a "flanger" used to clear the snow from between the rails either after the snow plows had gone by or in tandem with the snowplow - snowplow, engine, flanger, caboose.

The lines of the "caboose" are definitely not CPR but look like PRR, NYC, or some other American railroad.

Also, take a look at the caboose to the right. This is an odd one as the cupola is located in the centre and not at one end as was the usual practice. Also, the cupola has two windows rather than the single window as was the custom with CP cabooses.

The cupola on flangers was usually located in the middle so that the flanger could be used in both directions. The flanger blade was a "double V-shaped blade" so that it could operate in both directions. The flanger operator operated the blade from the cupola, lifting the blade at level crossings. The approach of a level crossing was indicated to both the snow plow operator and the flanger operator by a sign close to the level crossing - two horizontal white circles on a black background. You can still see these signs today about 100' or so on each side of the level crossing.

Bob M.
 
Bob, I've been looking at the photo, which is of a pretty poor quality, and the boxcars, which I thought were on the track immediately behind these cars, appear to have another track between them and the cabooses. This is evidenced by what looks to be part of a gondola, visible between the coupled ends of the two cars with the centred cupolas. The lower two words of the stacked Canadian Pacific Railway on one of the boxcars is blocked. This would help to explain why the dark shapes visible below the cabooses don't line up where the boxcar roofs would suggest that they should be. The boxcar visible between the caboose on the left and the Pennsy-style car is not blocked by anything on the track with the gondola, suggesting the the shape under the Pennsy car, just right of the left-hand truck, may be the gondola's left-end truck. The right-end truck is visible below the couplers of the two centre-cupola cars, and it appears as if there's another car coupled to the gondola. If so, it's either a very short car with yet another car coupled to it, or, it's a regular-length car whose right truck is visible just to the left of the right truck of the caboose at the right of the picture. If the latter is true, the right hand "caboose" is actually a flanger,as you suggest, with the blades directly below the cupola. That still leaves the Pennsy-style car as a mystery, although I have to agree that it's not likely being used as a caboose.

Wayne
 
Wayne: I just checked the oldest Trackside Guide I have (1986). The list of CP steel cabooses has a big gap between 437394 and 437442.
The Flanger listing in 1990 has them in the 400xxx series (and all on the dead line).
 
60103 said:
Wayne: I just checked the oldest Trackside Guide I have (1986). The list of CP steel cabooses has a big gap between 437394 and 437442.
The Flanger listing in 1990 has them in the 400xxx series (and all on the dead line).
Click to expand...

As best I can make out, the wooden car at left is 437431, the Pennsy-style car is 437434, and the one on the right with the centred cupola is 437309. As I said, the picture was taken in 1963, and only because the car in the centre struck me as looking out-of-place.

Wayne
 
OK folks, I had to go to a higher authority for this info (Don McQueen)...

He wrote:

Don McQueen said:
CP Tracks had a 2 pager on CP vans 2 issues ago, but no table.

In the CP Tracks issue 10-1, on page 11, it noted in what was called 'Series 4, the cars include a number which never became 'standards', but which appear to be attempts by the CPR to update their fleet based on successful designs in use on other railroads. Included in the various sub-series are the three steel bay-window cars introduced in 1948, and the two major designs of centre cupola cars introduced in 1953. The centre cupola cars included both a straight cupola design as well as cars with slanted cupola ends. Many cars in this series soldiered on until the end of caboose use in 1991, with some making it into Action Yellow paint with multimarks. Some of the centre-cupoa cars would be rebuilt into 'wide-vision' cars, while others would continue on as contructed'.
Click to expand...

So there y'go!
 
Thanks, Marc, that pretty well 'splains both of the centre cupola cars, and, as I mentioned, the other one is a standard CPR wooden caboose.

Wayne
 
A bit more info:

Dave Love said:
My records show a series of cars built in 1953 under EO 3890. Cars in the series are 437405 - 437454 at a length of 33' 2".

What I don't have documented is the specifics as they relate to the cupola. It's logical to assume they would have all been built to the same specifications since they share a common EO. The order totaled 50 cars and my collection of photographs in this series supports the use of the angled cupola on all. They appear fairly often in pictures which also supports them as more common than you might think.
Click to expand...
 
A little more info:
Doug P said:
As an addition to Dave's notes there were 50 of these vans built by Angus. 25 were assigned to Western Lines and 25 to eastern lines. The next order of Vans was an additional 50 but with box type cupolas. Preceding this order were the three bay window vans, of which spent most of their time in the west.

The sloped cupola vans were rebuilt with the extended cupolas for run through service. Only two remained original.
Click to expand...
 
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