A little railroad in the woods
There’s nothing quite like stumbling upon a vintage caboose. For us, they are like time machines taking us back to the ‘good-old-days’ of railroading. Recently our travels, crossed paths with three Monongahela Railway survivors: #69 and #70 standing sentry in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and #66 in Warren, Ohio.
Continue reading “Field Trip: Monongahela Railway Cabooses”
Heavy rain transformed Caboose Falls into a classroom again this week, offering all of us a firsthand look at how water moves across the property. While the downpour kept us tucked inside the cabooses much of the day, a few very brief breaks in the downpour revealed some problems.
Continue reading “The Downpour Diaries: Why We’re Grateful for a Soggy Week”Beyond Caboose Falls—Preserving the Stories Behind Cabooses
We’ve added a new page to our website dedicated to the nicknames and slang used by railroad crews who worked in cabooses.
Continue reading “New on the Site: Celebrating Caboose History”
Forget calling our P&LE 518 just ‘some old caboose.’ This car is a railroad legend with a surprising talent for disguise! Need proof? Just look inside Dwight Jones’s definitive work, C&O/B&O Cabooses – Display and Private Owner Cars (Vol. 4). There it is, a veteran of the New York Central System, comfortably nestled among cabooses from rival line Baltimore & Ohio! This unexpected cameo perfectly captures why 518 is such a fascinating railroading character.
Continue reading “P&LE 518: Master of Disguise & Bookworm”
Memorial Day at Caboose Falls was a mix of work and time spent with family—and for readers of this blog, you know that’s exactly what makes this place special.
Continue reading “Slow and Steady”We’ve just added some wonderful new poems to our railroad poetry archive—each one a little journey in itself. You’ll find everything from the gritty romance of steam engines to the quiet melancholy of midnight freight trains. Take a moment to explore the new additions—maybe you’ll discover a new favorite. Check out the poems here.
The final whistle of spring is sounding—daffodils have rolled into the siding, making way for mayapples to take the mainline as the new stars of the show. The sun-stretched days are picking up speed, and soon, summer’s heat will be laying heavy on the rails.
Continue reading “Spring’s Symphony: Trains, Blooms & Renovation News”
There’s something poetic about old cabooses. Some are polished like trophies. Others rot quietly, waiting for someone to notice them before they vanish. And then there are the ones you stumble upon by pure luck, like winning the caboose lottery. We saw it all in our recent day trip of hunting captive cabooses near Cleveland.
Continue reading “Field Trip: The Caboose Chronicles”