Our local tractor and engine club recently purchased Missouri Pacific caboose # 12144. A couple members are looking for any information available so that it's history can be presented along with the caboose when it is displayed at our annual show. Is there a good source out there to contact? Also any photos of the cabooses original apearance would be helpfu. Currently all we know is that it was built in 1955. Thanks for the help.

I found some photos of it in preservation, but none of it in service. http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2321607 Note the comment: "I was just there last Saturday(6-1-2019) Trees are gone. Still looks great. was able to go inside & get pics. Talked with the owners, they have a photo album of the move in 1986 6/3/2019 7:08:50 PM"
Edit: If you could get a look at those photos from 1986 (the year a lot of similar cabooses were removed from the roster) it might tell you a lot, because the paint in the photos I posted here is obviously a repaint by the non-railroad owners (trucks are usually not painted), but the delivery photos would show its last paint scheme and number. I halfway think the number on it now could be wrong, and that is why I haven't been able to find anything about that number. For example, the top photo is from a car in the same series.

At this website https://utahrails.net/caboose/cabooses-mp.php is discussed Missouri Pacific cabooses that were on the roster still at the time Missouri Pacific merged with Union Pacific in 1982, and your car isn't listed, which normally means it was off the roster by then. There is a discussion of where these cars came from, which indicates it could possibly have come from a predecessor company, especially Texas & Pacific. One way to tell is to look at the truck frames (the metal parts that hold the wheels and axles together) generally the name of the original owner is cast right into them (in the photo at bottom, a truck side frame is perfectly in between the two most rightward trees). If you report back here what you find, it may be possible to narrow it down a bit more. It looks as though the cabooses in the 121xx series were classified as "local service only" after they were rebuilt in Sedalia, MO in the 1960s, meaning they didn't have a lot of the amenities a road caboose would have.

At this website https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9 ... _Reilly_IL I found some additional photos, including one of the service record, "COTS" (clean, oil, test and stencil) which indicates it was built in 1955, and last serviced in 1983 at the Sedalia, MO shops, after the UP takeover, so it was on the roster then, if the COTS is correct.

There is a book about Missouri Pacific cabooses, it may have information about your caboose, but it isn't a sure thing. https://www.amazon.com/Cabooses-Missour ... 562&sr=8-1