Fresh Paint
Madison’s historic train caboose
gets a facelift
The caboose is popular with children and adults
who tour it
(July 2016) – For a few days last month, the phone rang off the hook at the Jefferson County (Ind.) Historical Society. Mike Raley, of Madison, Ind., was painting the popular train caboose, located at the corner of First and Mill streets. The message was clear. People did not like his color choice.
“Don’t paint it gray,” said the callers. “A caboose should be red!”
Office staff fielded the anxious phone calls about the beloved caboose and made it clear that Raley was only painting the primer coat. He worked 18 10-hour days to get the job done by mid-to-late June. And once again, the Louisville & Nashville Caboose No. 322 is a cheerful bright red and black, with a jaunty yellow trim.
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Photo courtesy of Mike Raley spent 18 days painting the caboose that sits outside the Jefferson County Historical Society at 605 W. First St., in Madison, Ind. |
“It looks wonderful,” said John Nyberg, the society’s executive director. “For us, it is an iconic symbol, our own little Statue of Liberty.”
Raley said, “It is a landmark for our town and for society.”
While he was painting the caboose, he said that he “couldn’t keep kids off.” In mid-June, he noted with humor, that some “explorer” had climbed on the deck, still was wet with black paint, and had left with black paint on his or her shoes.
“A whole bunch of kids came through,” he said. “They want to climb all over it. They love it.”
Nyberg praised the “meticulous and thorough” work done by Raley to preserve the caboose. The rails were rusted, so Raley worked on them for one week. The caboose itself took three to four coats of paint because it had faded so much.
“It was fun to do, and I am pleased to do it,” he said. “The caboose is a great thing for the town and the historical society.”
Raley is a member of the board of the society and assistant professor of history at Hanover College. An enthusiastic board member, he added that the Historical Society has an intern this summer, Mersi Curtsinger, who is working on records, purchasing storage boxes and working on childrens’ exhibits.
Madison is known for its railroad history, which is celebrated at the Heritage Center in the heart of the National Historic Landmark District. The city was the terminus of the Madison-Indiana-polis Railroad, the first railroad in Indiana. It is near the famous Madison Railroad Incline, an engineering wonder of its day. More than 7,000 feet long with a 5.9 percent grade, the incline took five years to build. The station features a scale model diorama telling the history of the incline and its construction.
The Heritage Center also is near the Heritage Trail for hikers who want to walk the incline.
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Photo courtesy of |
On the grounds of the Heritage Center stands the wooden caboose, once a fixture at the end of every freight train in America, and a restored 1895 railroad station. The brick Victorian-Era passenger depot is noted for its octagonal waiting room that is more than two stories tall. It was built in 1895 by the Pennsylvania Railroad and served travelers until 1931. It has an agent’s office that dates to 1903.
The caboose was built in 1918 at the South Louisville Shops of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and retired in the early 1970s. For a short time, it was used by a Boy Scout Troop as a meeting place. In 1976, it was acquired by the Kentucky Railroad Museum, which stored it at a site along the Ohio River. Over the years, it was damaged by floods and exposure to the elements. In 1988, it was given to the Jefferson County Historical Society.
To transport the caboose from Louisville to Madison was quite an undertaking. It was dissembled into three parts and transported on flat-bed trucks, with the assistance of the Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corp. Volunteers spent more than one year restoring the caboose. The interior of the caboose still was in good condition, but the outside was in rough shape because of 12 years of exposure. The roof and almost all of the exterior siding had to be replaced. Metal parts were sandblasted and painted. Hundreds of volunteers worked on the project. Two of the key volunteers were Louis Munier and Walter Forbes. Many individuals and companies gave generous donations.
Raley talked about the role of the caboose in railroad history. It served as a “home on wheels” for crews on the freight trains. The local caboose is equipped with bunks and horsehair mattresses, a stove, coal bin, ice box, and a place to keep tools. There is a cupola located atop the caboose so that a crew member could look out and get a good view of the train in motion. Windows used to drop into slots and had screens, Raley said. “The caboose had everything the crew needed to go on a long trip. “They served a function. The crew needed someplace to go and have their things. They were like a mini-apartment.”
The caboose also served as an office for the conductor, who needed space to check reports and manage the operation of the train. They served as a place to store lanterns, flags, chains and other work tools.
The Heritage Center also is near the Heritage Trail for hikers who want to walk the incline.
On the grounds of the Heritage Center stands the wooden caboose, once a fixture at the end of every freight train in America, and a restored 1895 railroad station. The brick Victorian-Era passenger depot is noted for its octagonal waiting room that is more than two stories tall. It was built in 1895 by the Pennsylvania Railroad and served travelers until 1931. It has an agent’s office that dates to 1903.
The caboose was built in 1918 at the South Louisville Shops of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad and retired in the early 1970s. For a short time, it was used by a Boy Scout Troop as a meeting place. In 1976, it was acquired by the Kentucky Railroad Museum, which stored it at a site along the Ohio River. Over the years, it was damaged by floods and exposure to the elements. In 1988, it was given to the Jefferson County Historical Society.
To transport the caboose from Louisville to Madison was quite an undertaking. It was dissembled into three parts and transported on flat-bed trucks, with the assistance of the Indiana-Kentucky Electric Corp. Volunteers spent more than one year restoring the caboose. The interior of the caboose still was in good condition, but the outside was in rough shape because of 12 years of exposure. The roof and almost all of the exterior siding had to be replaced. Metal parts were sandblasted and painted. Hundreds of volunteers worked on the project. Two of the key volunteers were Louis Munier and Walter Forbes. Many individuals and companies gave generous donations.
Raley talked about the role of the caboose in railroad history. It served as a “home on wheels” for crews on the freight trains. The local caboose is equipped with bunks and horsehair mattresses, a stove, coal bin, ice box, and a place to keep tools. There is a cupola located atop the caboose so that a crew member could look out and get a good view of the train in motion. Windows used to drop into slots and had screens, Raley said. “The caboose had everything the crew needed to go on a long trip. “They served a function. The crew needed someplace to go and have their things. They were like a mini-apartment.”
The caboose also served as an office for the conductor, who needed space to check reports and manage the operation of the train. They served as a place to store lanterns, flags, chains and other work tools.
A photo framed in the caboose shows that it could be a dangerous place to stay because of its location at the end of the train. The picture shows a caboose flying through the air when the train is slammed in the rear by another train.
Cupolas were added about 1863 when a conductor discovered that he could see his train much better if he sat atop boxes and peered through the hole in the roof of his boxcar. It is credited to T.B. Watson, a Chicago & North Western conductor who suggested that a “crows nest” be added to the new waycars the North Western was building, according to John Kelley, in a 2006 article for Trains Magazine.
Most railroads painted their cabooses “boxcar red” for high visibility, according to Trains Magazine. After World War II, however, the “little red caboose” began to show up in colors that were associated with colors schemes found on the railroads’ new diesel locomotives. Chesapeake & Ohio liked a yellow and blue caboose, while Pennsylvania Railroad painted “Tuscan red.” Milwaukee Road had orange and black, while Chicago & North Western waycars were various shades of yellow and green. Other colors were silver, black and blue, and cascade green or Conrail blue.
In the mid-1920s, there were about 34,000 cabooses operating on U.S. railroads. By the late 1980s, most had been replaced by modern technology. They also were victims of changing labor rules.