For the Fordnatic who wants one (and can afford such a luxury), there is an original Detroit, Toledo, and Ironton wooden caboose for sale on the internet. D,T&I was Henry Ford's railroad that he used to haul iron ore, forest products, and any other cargo to his Michigan plants. This particular caboose was built in 1926. The price is reasonable for a piece of history like this and the caboose looks like it would need little. It can be seen at the website of Ozark Mountain Railcar.
Oh, I don't know. A little paint, some curtains, flowers, were home honey.
It takes a special breed of woman to live in a railroad car....I don't think I've ever met one, and I used to work for a historical railroad....
Where is it located and price?
Can't you picture that converted to an RV? You would just tag along on the ends of trains. For the 200 mpg they advertise, it should be pretty low fare.
Hobo first class.
rdr
Ralph - Sounds like a great idea, until you find out how much cost is involved with bringing an old piece of railroad rolling stock up to FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) standards and maintaining it at that level! I guess it just another one of those things that boil down to the old adage; "if you have to consider the cost, you can't afford it!" ........ harold
You'd have to find a very special, local RR to be able to use the caboose. It's not the FRA as much as it is the individual RR and its rules. If the caboose still has friction bearings on the trucks you are pretty well out of luck. Being a 1926 model, it probably does. But, if you can find a tourist RR that is running old stuff they may be more interested in your caboose. Next to steam engines, cabooses are one of the biggest draws to a RR and always seem to bring a smile and a wave.
http://www.ozarkmountainrailcar.com/detail.asp?id=836&n=Detroit-Toledo--Ironton- Wood-Caboose-REDUCED
In case I'm not the only one who wanted to see it.
what are friction bearings, and what are the alternative?
William V.
In 1972 while working for Burlington Northern RR the wife and I lived in a box car, KDB (kitchen,Dining, Bunk) in the middle of winter in Noxon, Montana. One of the best times of our life!
Neil,
Roller bearings are what's accepted today.
Friction bearings consist of a babbitted brass shell that sits on top of the axle journal with a steel adapter plate atop that. In the botton of the journal box you stuffed an oil soaked pad that made contact with the journal. They were still in use as late as 86, now out lawed as far as I know for general use. I replaced many wheel sets and bearings when I worked for southern railway. KB
Neil - You asked,...."what are friction bearings"......
Prior to the modern roller bearings that Floyd mentioned, railroad rolling stock journal boxes contained brass bearing halves (for lack of a better word)....one upper and one lower and weighed 10 or 12 pounds each. When a train rolled into a freightyard that was a regular inspection point, one of the car inspector's duties was to open each of the hinged journal box covers with what was called a "packing hook" and pour a quantity of journal oil in the journal box from a large spouted oil can that each carman carried. This was to make sure that the large wad of cotton "waste" in each journal box was adequately soaked with lubricating oil. The carman's tool called the "packing hook" was just that,...an iron rod a couple feet long with a loop handle on one end, and a small hook on the other end to pull the journal box cover open and to pull the oily cotton waste out of the journal box if necessary.
It took several years for railroads to convert from the old friction bearings to modern roller bearings in the '70's and we were all glad to see them go. The old "friction bearings" caused what were called "hot boxes" when the lube ran low or something else went wrong. They would actually get hot enough for the cotton waste & what little journal oil was left to catch fire.
Anyway, most railroaders were glad to see the old friction bearings gone as they caused all kinds of problems and delays. In our case in the RR Police Department, we were sure glad to see them gone because "journal brass theft" was a common problem to us as they were commonly stolen for scrap value. And if a train crew coupled onto a car that had one or more journal brasses stolen out of it, the axle journal was scored and ruined to the point it needed to be re-machined if the car was pulled even one foot with no brass bearing in it. A hot journal bearing nowadays is a rare thing,.....almost unheard of. Back in the old days, especially at night, it was "s.o.p." for train crews to continually look back over their train (or forward from the caboose) to make sure the journals were "all dark"; in other words, no "hot box" fires. During the day, the sign of a hot box was smoke. Back in those days, I'm not sure that there were more "bad-order" cars set out because of a "hot box" than any other kind of mechanical trouble except for maybe brakes dragging. (that made smoke too)
Anyway Neil, that's probably more than you ever wanted or needed to know about RR "friction bearings",.....harold
When I was 5 my family took a train trip to Seattle WA. At one point I saw a freight train on a siding with blocks of ice in the stuffing boxes, I remember asking my Dad what that was for and he replied "to cool down the hot boxes" He went on to explain how the cotton waste soaked in oil would catch fire and threaten to burn up the wooden boxcars.
Really dumb stuff one remembers as a kid!
Harold, I beg to differ, but there was no lower bearing. The weight of the car held the one upper bearing shell and adapter in place. KB
John that did happen at times. In the old days the old timers said that hobos were bad to remove the packing to use for a fire. Later on they went to the oil soaked pads. Lots of work to change a wheel set out on the road a long way from a crossing when a journal was cut off. KB
Timken roller bearing "trucks" are what are used nowadays and I know of no major railroad who will allow a piece of rolling stock on its rails if it has friction bearings. Of course all this talk doesn't matter if the car were going to be on static display. Some T guy ought to snap this up.
Yeah, you're right Keith; don't know what I was thinking. I guess my only DIRECT involvement with journal brass had to do with journal brass theft cases that I investigated over the years. Stands to reason that all the weight was carried on the top of the journal, huh? Thanks for correcting this slightly senile ol' retired "cinder dick",....harold
Harold, knew a guy once that sold some brass that had been laying by the spur where he worked for a couple years. He thought it was junk so sold it for scrap and almost went to jail I guess the railroad detectives made the rounds of the scrap yards pretty often. Anyway they were phasing out the friction bearings by then and let him off the hook because of ignorance. Guy said sometimes being dumb paid off!
One more thing, I know this thread has gotten off track(no pun intended) but hats off to the railroad dicks, never knew them not to solve a crime. KB
Keith - We tried not to talk about the ones we didn't solve; only the ones we solved!
I caught a scrap yard "operator" in Butte, Montana with a quantity of what I knew to be stolen journal brass from the railroad I worked for. This "sneaky snake" of a junk dealer kept a half dozen old boxcars in his scrap yard for two reasons. He claimed he had them for storage purposes, and I could not dispute that, because he DID have all sorts of junk stored in them. The other reason was in case he got caught with stolen journal brass, he could CLAIM the journal brass came out of those old boxcars!
No problem, Keith. I wish the pun were intended. Sometimes its more fun that way. BTW, this may be one of the last, if not the only D,T&I rolling stock in existence, unless they have some at the Henry Ford Museum. Wooden cabooses are rare. Most got torn up in derailments, or caught fire and burned, or just simply were dismantled and junked.
As a kid in the mid fifties, I remember a wooden sided "refrigerated" car(which had the hoppers in the top on each end for ice blocks) that was left on the siding in our small town because of a hotbox late in the evening. Apparently, the section gang was supposed to take care of it, but for whatever reason, they didn't. Late that night we were awakened by the local volunteer fire department putting out the fire in the wooden siding. It pretty much burn't up one corner of the car. Dave
Friction bearing wheel sets were outlawed by the FRA. Sealed rollers are all you can get now.
The car is being sold for 15K but if you restored it, you'd have way more than that in it. I was involved in the restoration of a Clinchfield caboose, and it was a nightmare.
Forget living in it. If someone's thinking of building a small shop, buy that car instead.