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Cabooses

Caboose#0231: This caboose was built in August, 1949 by the Wheeling & Lake Erie Ironville, Ohio shops as class C-8 and originally numbered 0231. This class of caboose was the last built by the W&LE before it was merged into the New York, Chicago & St. Louis, or "Nickel Plate Road".

The design is of a typical "northeastern" style caboose based on those of the New York, New Haven & Hartford built by the Pullman Standard Company. The main differences would be the size and placement of the windows and a flat sheet steel roof instead of the more typical stamped steel.

With the lease of the W&LE by the Nickel Plate, the caboose was renumbered 731. After the merger with the Norfolk & Western, the caboose was painted their standard blue with white lettering and renumbered to 557731 at the Brewster shops.

The caboose was acquired by LRRM in August 2010. We are currently working to complete the restoration the caboose to its 1949 as-built appearance.

Caboose 518441#518441: This caboose was built in September of 1949 for the Norfolk & Western Railway as a Class C-2 caboose by St. Louis Car Company in St. Louis, Missouri at an original cost of $10,507.

The car spent most of its life running in the coal fields of Virginia and West Virginia before being retired in 1985 and eventually stored at Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In 1987 it was sold to used equipment dealer D.L. Barnhardt. It eventually was purchased by Jeff Sanson of Sanson Company in Cleveland, Ohio in 2006. Mr. Sanson donated the car to LRRM in March of 2021.