Museum acquires antique wood caboose

THOMASTON — The Railroad Museum of New England has acquired Central Vermont Railway wood caboose No. 4014 built by CV’s St. Albans, Vt., shop 93 years ago.

According to RMNE Chairman Howard Pincus, “CV 4014 is a wonderful example of the thousands of wood cabooses once used all over the nation. Cabooses were painted red or orange on most American railroads and were usually the last car on a freight train. They carried the rear end marker lamps, denoting the ‘official’ end of a train. Train watchers could usually count on a friendly wave from train crewmen riding the caboose.

Pincus said, “This caboose contains two bunks, a raised observation area called a ‘cupola,’ a coal- burning stove for heating, two oil lamps for lighting, a sink, an ice box, a desk and chair, a pair of seats facing a folding table, and many lockers and cabinets for storage of tools, parts, coal and the crew’s personal items.

“This caboose has a great history,” Pincus said. Central Vermont Railway built the caboose at its St. Albans Shops in February 1925 to replace a caboose of the same number that had been destroyed by fire. CV operated it in active freight service until 1973. CV then sold it to Steamtown USA museum in Bellows Falls, Vt.

Previous owner Allen B. Pomeroy III said, “The caboose was transferred to Vermont Historical Railroad upon Steamtown’s exit from Vermont.” When Vermont Historical Rail- road disposed of its equipment in 1987, Pomeroy purchased it.

Pomeroy restored and maintained the caboose in Massachusetts. In 1992 he moved the CV 4014 to the Railroad Museum of New England yard at Old Saybrook. The caboose was part of the September 1996 move of RMNE equipment to Waterbury, for startup of RMNE’s new Naugatuck Railroad operation.

According to Pincus, “In 1998, CV 4014 had a featured role in the History Channel series ‘Trains Unlimited — The Caboose.’ Both interior and exterior shots showed CV 4014 in action on a Naugatuck Railroad demonstration freight train. Additional restoration work took place during 2003-10, including a full repaint and a new rubber membrane roof.”

Pincus said, “Freight train crews used cabooses as a rolling office (conductors did their paperwork at the desk), bunk room (for rest at the end of a run), tool box (for freight car repairs out on the line), lunch room (meals were cooked on board using the coal stove), and a lookout post for observing the freight cars during the train’s run.”

Pincus said, “Most woodbodied cabooses like CV 4014 were retired in the early 1960s, and replaced by more modern, all-steel cabooses, equipped with oil or gas heating, electric lighting and more comfortable bunks. Those ‘modern’ cabooses in turn, were replaced almost at once in the mid-1980s by electronic ‘End-Of-Train’ devices known as FREDs (Flashing Rear End Devices). FREDs are still in use today, but they don’t wave at train watchers.”

RMNE is located at the landmark Thomaston Station, at 242 East Main St. in Thomaston.