Here are some recent photos of a wide-vision cupola caboose at the Hubinger Garden Center in Crown Point, Indiana. Although the garden center recently painted the caboose with an Erie-Lackawanna diamond herald and gave it a EL number (C-317), the car is definitely NOT EL! At one time it was painted in red with yellow ends and it appeared that blue was showing beneath the chipped or fading paint at that time. That made me think it was once a Conrail caboose. If that was correct, the only wide-vision cabooses that CR had on their roster were ex-Reading. I have never been able to find out any info on the caboose either on the inside, or the outside. Hubinger's obviously takes good care of the car, using it for storage of various landscaping supplies. Any help in determining the pedigree of the caboose is welcome. And thanks!

Les

Hi Les
I think I might have what the IRC stands for??? how about
Inter Colonial Railways of Canada

The KTN not sure of, the date with 7/2/82 with the initials BN-DH

BN is Burlington Northern DH is Delaware & Hudson That is my guess. Pat.

I’m pretty sure that’s not Conrail/Reading. Reading’s had three windows per side, Conrail typically blanked two of the three. The consolidated stencil looks a bit like gibberish and isn’t in Conrail’s “style”. Ref: http://conrailphotos.thecrhs.org/node/8862

IRC may have been meant to be ICC for International Car Co. and KTN could have been Kenton (OH), neither would be on the stencil unless it was for COTS of the month and year of manufacture. The rest of the stencil.... who knows? It’s kinda jumbled.

Definitely a BN caboose. The number on the other hand is still a mystery.

Conrail inherited some of Reading’s wide vision cabooses. Those were the only ones.

ICC was bought by Paccar and the Kenton plant closed in 1983(?). I think 1982 was the year that cabooses were no longer mandated. So, yeah, a 1980 build date is possible.

As to heritage, maybe someone at the garden center knows where it came from and/or has an old photo of it.