In the USA,why has the Caboose been taken off trains like Burlington Nothern trains and the like?

Question

In the USA,why has the Caboose been taken off trains like Burlington Nothern trains and the like?

Answer 1

Cabooses were done away with largely as a labour saving move.  Train crews used to be a full five members several decades ago, but these days crews are either two or three members.

In place of the caboose, wayside inspection systems are placed every so often along main lines, which scans the train for possible defects, such as hot wheels, overheated bearings, shifted loads, flat spots on the wheels, and dragging equipment.  There's also a tail end device mounted on the last car of the train, hooked up to the brake pipe, which sends information (brake pipe pressure, motion detection) to a display unit on the engineer's control stand.

Some short lines, road switchers, and yard assignments still use cabooses.  On CN, any cabooses still hanging around usually have the doors welded shut and the windows boarded up.  They're used strictly as "rider cars", which means it's a more comfortable and safer place for us to ride if we need to shove (back up) for any extended length.

Answer 2

History of Caboose's should you be interested

http://www.sdrm.org/history/caboose/cabo...

Story on why no more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caboose

Answer 3

Actually some trains still do use them. Usually coal trains that need to back under a mine tipple or loader. They're also used by the railroads' police departments as a mobile station on some valuable or high priority military shipments.

Although cabooses aren't used anywhere near as much as they used to be because train crews have been downsized. On most trains they consist of an engineer and conductor or engineer and a brakeman and they both ride in the engine so it made little sense to have an empty caboose all the way in the back not hauling any cargo or needed crew members.

Answer 4

Everything is computerized, so they don't need the caboose anymore.  Too bad.

Answer 5

I can't tell you why and I wish I could.

I can only say that they really are gone. There's more than two dozen trains that roll through the town I live in and none of them have cabooses on them anymore. I kind of miss that.

Now they usually have another engine in its place to help push it along. They some times have to stop and wait for other trains to pass and the extra engine helps them get going again, but I've never heard why they took the caboose off of them.

Answer 6

He have a friend of the family that works on a railroad.  The use of the cabooses has been cut because of cutbacks.  The railroads needed to cut back in employees.  The job of the caboose person is to watch over the train from the back and make make sure everything is going smoothly.  The RR cut this job to save money.

Answer 7

The last year I saw a caboose in operation on a main line road was 1985.  That was on the Soutthern Pacific on the Llano Division rolling out of Austin, Texas Northwest bound near MP 8 or 9.  It was one of those bay window cars in the autum or early winter .  Never thought I was seeing my last one.

In the US, railroads had petitioned the FRA or maybe Congress to permit them to reduce the number of train crewmen, and introduce automated systems to do the same things a brakeman would do, in theory.  Its hard to see how you'd easily protect the rear of a train or inspect on the curves as well.

If a knuckle bursts, its nice to have more than just the conductor or engineer to replace it.  I would miss having an experienced brakeman if I were on the head end.

Answer 8

Here's your best answer, all of the rest are good.  The railroad did have 5 guys on a crew and the guys on the back of the caboose would line the switches back when they went into a siding.  There are also switches that a dispatcher has control over by computer now where they can line switches how they want as well.  The one and most important reason that nobody said was the invention of the RADIO.  On the subdivision I work on you used to have what you call track and time where you could move your train from point A to point B but only during this particular time that was given to you because there was no other means of communication with other trains other than by sight.  So when people went into a siding to wait for another train to pass them, they had to line that switch back that let them in the siding and the guys on the caboose did this.  Since the radio, you now have a dispatcher that will tell the approaching train to stop and line that switch back for main track before you go....there's communication....with communication you don't need the guys on the rear of the train