Did the NYC System use yellow in their markers? I thought that was a PRR thing, with almost all other roads using red and green. Normal rules from the WWII era was to turn BOTH markers to green (or yellow on the P company) when clear of the main in a siding, so the approaching train knew they were in the clear.

On the eastern multi track lines there were red and green or red and yellow aspects for use when running on one of multiple tracks with designated traffic in the same direction. This allowed an overtaking train to confirm that the train ahead was NOT on the same track they were.

When you get back as far as the turn of the twentieth century, likely it was all different yet.

As to the ring like contraption ahead of the cupola, I thought the conductor had brought his barbecue grill along. Actually, I thought it was something trackside on the other side of the car. I'm not seeing it in the photo of C39, but I don't have the original magazine to look at. By the way, what magazine is that?

Other interesting details I noticed... No cupola side windows. sliding doors instead. If you want to look out, you need to be open to the weather. Of course, with that big walkway up there, the cupola must be so narrow you'd need to be part way out to view the side of the train for hotboxes, etc.

The end ladder isn't attached to the roof, it fits in sockets on the fascia. Soo Line wood cabooses were like this until the end. If the car is hit hard enough to break the platform down, the laddejust pulls out and doesn't damage the roof.

I don't think there is a magazine, just Staufer's book--"New York Central's Early Power, 1831-1916," 1967. The C39, with Mason-built 108, is on page 202; the dynamometer car, in lighter paint and carrying the number 609 on the Big Four, is on page 284 with what looks like a new (and handsome) C-74 4-4-0 (Schenectady 1893-1895) that appears to have the number 552. (Yeah, finally raised up the energy to go downstairs and get it!)

Outside of the different steps, the link and pin couplers, and what might be wider siding boards, the C39 looks virtually identical to our subject, including sliding doors instead of side windows in the cupola; at least one of these doors is open in the C39 photo.

The 609, besides its lighter color, has a more traditional cupola arrangement, is missing what would be the window that's under the cupola on our subject and the C39, is missing the vents entirely, has only two steps to the platform (but they look to be enclosed, like on a passenger car), has a toolbox under the car, Janney couplers, and not only air brakes but steam and signal lines for use in passenger trains.

The car also has some sort of box-like structures that Staufer says are markers set in a bit from the four corners (and they seem to have rectangular glass panels in the sides, vs. the sheet metal in the fixed cupola lamps on the C39 and our subject), marker light brackets on the corners (which are at the same height as the fixed markers), the noted lamp or lamp ventilator on the cupola roof, and the normal running boards down the center of the roof but no end ladders at all.

The lettering on the 609 is interesting. . .reading down, we have:

BIG FOUR
P&E DIV.
DYNAMOMETER CAR
MECH'L. ENGINEERING DEPT.
UNIVERSITY of ILLINOIS

Like the locomotive coupled to it, the car looks new, or at least is in fresh paint or recently converted (take your pick).

That car sounds like one with some stories to tell, if we could find them.

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought it was you that posted the links to caboose pix above; it was Train Detainer. The links look kind of like the New York Central Historical Society Headlights but the pages are not so identified.

No apologies needed, there are worse things in the world!

I didn't see those links before (were they edited in?), but looking at them now seems to answer a couple of other questions, primarily in regard to the five lamps that Daniel Willard said were the practice when he was an engineer on the Lake Shore.

THE interesting shot is the LS&MS bobber No. C230. It has the narrow cupola with sliding doors, enclosed lamps, and walkways of its larger cousins, and also has the vents over the windows, three steps with kick boards, and Janney couplers but no air (and was built in 1898)--all of which would suggest standard design features on the Lake Shore.

What also shows more distinctly is what appears to be a lamp chimney over the center end window of the cupola; it's likely there is another at the other end, but the chimney from the fixed marker looks to be in front of it and blocks it from view.

This would be similar to a feature of certain C&O composite cabooses built in the 20th century. The reason for them on the C&O cars was the road had planned to use the center windows for a train number indicator or something similar, and they would have been lit from behind by a lantern behind the glass.

The C&O never implemented that, and most of the cars in that particular group eventually lost those lamp chimneys, but others kept them for some time. They always retained the center window, which was absent on otherwise identical cars.

If memory serves me right, they were home built by the Logan shops of the Hocking Valley only a couple of years before the HV was merged into the C&O in 1930, and would be the last wooden bodied cabooses on the C&O, prior to delivery of the first all-steel cars around 1937 or so.

It would make sense that the area behind the glass would be the location for that fifth light Willard mentioned. It would have an advantage in being accessible from inside the car and protected from wind and rain.

It also looks like the top of such a chimney is just visible on the subject car, again above the center window. Such chimneys are also visible above center windows in the bobber that's with 2-8-0 5795.

Finally, we do have proof that the LS&MS did have drovers' cars; photos of two, one being a rather typical longer caboose type, and the other a converted passenger car, are in the same publication. Both also have the fixed cupola markers, though lamp chimneys for the drovers' caboose type car are not visible, and it's pretty clear from the cupola on the passenger conversion that it doesn't have them.

I couldn't find a prototype photo of a C&O caboose with the center window and the lamp chimneys, but those features do show up in this model in a post-steam era paint scheme:

https://cdn3.volusion.com/ztna9.tft5b/v ... 1456472651

http://www.hobby1.com/images/D/DSC_8869.JPG

A full-sized car with the center windows, but the lamp chimneys removed.

http://www.richyodermodels.com/rym_imag ... 02_500.jpg

Another C&O wooden car, but without the center windows. This would have been typical of most of C&O's later wood-bodied cars.

http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/da ... boose1.JPG

WOW!! Not connected with any of this at all (it's a Union Pacific car), but so interesting it just had to be included!

http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c330/ ... aboose.jpg

I like those Christmas ornaments on the end of the car. Obviously day markers, they must have felt balls (like used on a ball signal) were better than flags.

That is the disadvantage of the built in markers, no day indication, since the enclosures are there all the time. I note the LS&MS cars has the enclosed markers, hooks on the corner posts (for hanging the trainmen's lanterns as someone else mentioned?) and flag holders on the corner posts, obviously for day markers.

The caboose pages are NYCSHS research resource pages. Found them with google although I'd seen them before.

That UP caboose is something else. Looks almost like it was patterned after an immigrant car.

Thanks. A little bit off topic... our company, Accurail, has just released an HO scale kit for the NYC System 36' boxcars, and I noted with interest all the temporary cabooses built from these cars during WWII. While our kit does not include the heavy channel side sills, as the vast majority of these cars didn't have them, they would be easy to add. It looks like the underframe, roof, and steel ends from our kit would be applicable. I'm going to pass that link along to one of the modeling forums.

Just something else in regard to rear end markers. . .this turned up when I was looking for something else. It's a photo of an old B&O bobber caboose. Take note of the three markers on the cupola, plus the brackets for flags.

http://www.wvgenweb.org/ohio/trolley/tt-pic12.htm

Between Willard's comments about five lights on the Lake Shore, the big and unusual UP caboose markers, and this one, it looks like a lot of attention was expended on making the rear end visible.