I am trying to get an idea as to the percentage of cabooses that museums run in their normally scheduled passenger runs. If your museum or tourist operation never uses cabooses, the total would be 0%. If your entire train consists of cabooses, then 100%. If you usually run a 4 car train and there are two cabooses, then 50%. If you run a 4 car train and just stick a caboose on the rear, then that would be 20%. I'll start it off:

HVRM (Indiana) - 83%

Thanks guys!

Les

Steamtown: Regular (excursion) service -never

Periodically, the yard shuttle has used the DL&W caboose,primarily at times where expected ridership would be accommodated by the 15-18 or so that can be seated in the hack.

Wilmington & Western: in years past, and I believe still, one or two cabooses at the rear of four Lackawanna "Boonton" cars. One caboose basically guaranteed, two if a party has rented a second caboose that day. Possibility of additional coaches during special events.

B&O Railroad Museum: Has operated a solid train of cabooses in the past on special-event days, but does not routinely run cabooses on their out-and-back excursion.

Western Md. Scenic: As near as I can tell, special events or charters only.

We run a caboose on every train at Heart of Dixie.
Bill

Actually W&W runs 2 or 3 cabs on most of it's trains now. A one cab train is more of a "rarity" any more. Caboose parties are very much an important part of their operating revenue.

3 cabs = 2 B&O I-5's and 1 E-L cab.

It has been two years since I have "worked" the train at Heber, but the difficulty that I see with your request is that consists varied and were governed by ticket sales--also at times by equipment availability.

On the short side one coach, one concession car, one open-air and the caboose--so 25%. On the long side, three coaches, one concession car, three open-airs and the caboose--or 12.5% by your definition. But the majority of the time both the long run to Vivian Park and the Soldier Hollow Express (short run) had a caboose. Then again, these percentages would change if we were running steam and had one or two of the water cars with us.

Craig Lacey may want to update this to the current status--I note that the website now lists a Lakeside Limited train (to the Wallsburg siding and back?).

I have heard that they are doing a "refurbishment" of UP 3700 (nee UP 3769) for use as a charter car only.

sc 'doc' lewis

The Walkersville Southern Railroad typically runs a four-car train with the last being a caboose.

If the FRA continues on its current path of requiring FRA Type II safety glass on all passenger cars built after 1945, be aware that they may enforce the same standard on your caboose, if it was built after 1945 as well. Has anyone been caught up in this?

On the NHV, we use two cabooses in our five car train. The other three cars are flat cars converted to open air covered cars with school bus seats in them. Of the cabs, both are wooden, one an old SAL cab and the other from the Aberdeen & Rockfish that had one end converted to haul freight. We use it with two 'cattle gates' in the baggage doors. Kind of reminds me of the old recording cars on the NS steam train before the influx of HEP, diesels, and private cars at the head end.

Tough to get an accurate fix on that for the IRM. We usually run a separate three caboose train on selected weekends. With 2 car electrics running all summer it’s not much.
Just looking at Memorial Day to Labor Day I get a rough estimate of 4% of the total CARs run.
People love them, especially kids, they always fill up, but as a ratio of total available SEATS all year it could be below 1%.

My understanding is that most cabooses are not exempt by statute from ADA requirements. An ADA activist could cause problems if your caboose does not comply with the act. Most steps and doors are too narrow.

Port Stanley Terminal Rail in Southern Ontario. Almost always 100% converted cabooses on their regular trains, except for their entertainment and murder mystery trains.
http://www.pstr.on.ca/passenger_cars.htm

At Orange Empire we use cabooses less than 25% of the time. Sometimes we run a train with open-air cars (flatcars with sides and benches) with cabooses to provide access via "gangplanks". During some special events, we run a three-caboose train from the main platform to Barn 4 in the southeastern part of the property. This usually has "cabeese" from UP, SP and Santa Fe (no playing favorites!) I enjoy being a caboose attendant, because it gives me a chance to explain a bit of railroad history and discuss the effects of slack action at the end of a long freight train (an experience from my younger days). I point out the many sturdy hand holds that one can grab when the train starts up and the slack runs out. If our visitors are interested in some of the technical details, I can point out the air-pressure gauge that lets the crew know the status of the braking system. We even get some professional railroaders who come to see what was part of everyday life for the "old rails". The only hard part is deciding who gets to ride in the cupola.

Southern Michigan Railroad Society started out (with speeders, actually, but when they got their train going, they started out) with two cabooses. That was the "caboose train". They ran a year or two like that. So 100%.

In 1987 they overhauled an old pipe gon and turned it into a passenger coach with center seating. One of the drop-in ends had been mangled, so a "vestibule ramp" was constructed there, and one of the cabooses was slightly modded to mate with it. That guaranteed a caboose must be on any train employing the gon. The train then became 2 cabeese 1 gon or 66%.

When the South Shore car came along, the gon was modded to dock with it, so cabeese weren't required, but one usually remained in the train at all times. So 33%. This became the norm when a caboose was taken out of service for overhaul. That's back in service, so you may yet see 50% on some days.

There was talk of modifying a transfer caboose with a wheelchair lift. I've done a fair amount of investigating the ins and outs of ADA law, and I conclude that's a mistake. You are not exempt, but you are ADA-compliant if you do all that is "readily achievable". If you go BEYOND that requirement and construct something like that, you are then obliged to maintain it, or something just as good, forever. And anything containing the word "lift" is notoriously unreliable and therefore expensive.

Nothing is exempt by statute from ADA requirements. There is no magic wand that makes Title III go away. It is a universal requirement that exists in all public venues in the United States. You must do what is "readily achievable" - easily accomplishable and able to be carried out without much difficulty or expense. What counts as "readily achievable" factors in your financial wherewithal as well as the impact on the operation of your business. It's a judgment call.

There are some requirements in the ADA laws which are specifically intended to apply to modern passenger coaches in some sort of transportation function (subway, Amtrak, etc.) People get confused by those. They were never intended to apply to historic equipment, and where it matters, ADA laws tend to defer to historic preservation.