Hi Les,
I haven't been on the website in awhile, so I just now saw this post on the former Big Four caboose that the CK&S had. It's been about ten years or so, so my memory might be a bit fuzzy on some facts, but I'll do my best off the top of my head. This caboose WAS formerly on the Artrain, when it was based in Ann Arbor. It was before my time with the MTM, but IIRC, the story told to me was that the Artrain was looking at upgrading their equipment, and donated two pieces to the MTM- a former B&O (?) baggage car that they used as a gallery, and the NYC (CCC&St.L) wood caboose.

We were still based on Selfridge ANG Base, and long before I joined the museum, our members had removed the roof and sides on the old baggage car, as they were falling in anyway. I think the original idea was since it was heavily modified by the Artrain, to rebuild the car as an open-air car, but nothing concrete ever was decided on and eventually they used the now-flatcar with bulkheads as a place to store ties that were removed from the line.

The Big Four caboose (or "The NYC", as our members called it), was leased to the NYC Historical Society with many of their members excited to restore it. I'm not sure if it was the tight regulations that we all had to work with on an active military base, or if maybe it proved to be too far for their members, but they stopped coming out and little by little the car started falling into disrepair. The caboose frame was wood, along with the end platforms, and the platforms started rotting away, with one of them hanging down, as shown in the photo someone posted. Also, during one of the winters, when we are in our off-season and not too many members would venture out to the Base except for an occasional check of the equipment, one of the window frames in the cupola had rotted away and the window fell into the cupola. Of course, a raccoon (or family) had made themselves at home in the cupola and we had to chase them out and rehang the window.

About the same time, the DoD was coming through and wanted everything tidied up. As you can imagine, the "flatcar" full of dead ties was on the hitlist to be removed, as well as the now-dilapidated NYC hack. Contact was made with the NYC group to see if they were interested in working on it again, as we had to do something with it. A number of them came out and did a few things, but then mysteriously disappeared. In the end, we didn't want it to A) be scrapped per the Base request, or B) sit and rot somewhere else, and it was decided to try and find another group interested in restoring it, seeing as it's (what we also believe to be) the last existing Big Four caboose. One of our members was a truck driver and came across the owner of the CK&S during one of his trips. Contact was made, some pictures followed, and finally it was decided the CK&S would be a good home for it to be restored, as they had a barn to work in (whereas we didn't-and still don't), and it's closer to home than here in Michigan. The owner had requested the cupola be removed so that it wouldn't require the high load permits all the way down to southern Indiana. My guess is that due to the rotten wood, they probably thought it would be safer during the move anyway.

The last we heard of it, they sent us some pics of it in the barn with the tarp on the cupola awaiting work to be done. We heard the CK&S might have shut down, and were wondering whatever became of the caboose. Now, we know! As for the old baggage car, we were eventually given notice that our lease would not be renewed on the Base and that we would have to find a new home for some of our equipment. We created a fenced-in yard along our line to secure the equipment the best we could, but unfortunately, all of our rolling stock would not fit within the yard. We tried to market the old crane and flatcar that we received from the Base when they ceased coal operations. The baggage car/flatcar was also deemed surplus and after some minor interest in the crane (but nothing that could work out due to us not being connected to the mainline), it was sadly determined that the crane, it's flatcar, and the former shell of the Artrain baggage car would be scrapped. Luckily, the NYC caboose had gone to it's new home on the CK&S by then.

I'm sorry to hear the CK&S indeed did cease operations. I do hope the new owners of the Big Four caboose can do it justice with a good restoration and hopefully one day the few of us at the MTM left during that time that have actually been inside of it, can see it once again!

David -

Thanks very much for all of this interesting info. The fact that MTM "leased" the Big Four (NYC) caboose to the NYCSHS finally gives me an answer to a statement made to me quite a while ago about remaining Big Four cabooses. I was told back then, that the New York Central System Historical Society had a caboose up in Michigan. Obviously, they were talking about the caboose there at MTM.

I too hope that the folks at Shirley, Indiana can restore the caboose. It looks like they had a fair amount of folks working on it at their first (?) work session. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them.

Les

Couple of interesting things. First of all, the folks in Shirley, Indiana have apparently started a "Go Fund Me" page in an effort to bring in some monies for the restoration of the last existing Big Four (CCC&StL) wood cupola caboose.

And secondly, there is some kind of an effort being made to save the CK&S Railroad itself. Not sure how that is going but there seems to be, from some recent photos, a few pieces of equipment left on the railroad at Carthage, Indiana. Including an N&W steel caboose #530318 (ex-Virginian perhaps?), the steel Erie sealed window coach and a GTW transfer caboose.

The effort on the Big Four caboose has brought in some initial funds, but quite a way to go.


Les

Here's a resized copy of the caboose photo from the March '17 posting....mld

And here it is in the cocoon...mld

mldeets -

Thanks for the two photos, including the "cocooned" caboose. I saw a photo on their "Go Fund Me" page, which shows the car without the tarp and with all of the old "jade green" plywood overlap sheets removed. One of the photos on their Facebook page, shows one of the "jade green" sheets lettered as PC 17646, so the car must have made it into the Penn Central era. The car currently does not have its cupola, and I don't know if it is still around or not. The cupolas on these CCC&StL (Big Four) cabooses were rather distinctive on the New York Central; first for their height and second because they slightly overlapped the sides of the roof. Here is a photo showing sister caboose with the plywood sheets applied over the original lap siding:

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/images/nyc-17362.jpg

If the folks in Shirley don't have the original cupola, making a replication might be difficult. Incidentally, the cars originally were numbered 1-799 on the Big Four and later when incorporated into the New York Central System became numbers 17350-17691. Note that not all of the 799 cars made it into the NYC.

Les

I thought they had 3 to 4 GTW transfer cabooses?

NS 3322 -

From the photos, I could only make out those 3 pieces of equipment. There might have been one other piece of rolling stock beyond the GTW transfer caboose, but I couldn't tell for sure.

Les

NS 3322 -

Two other photos showed up. The first shows that there doesn't appear to be another piece of equipment coupled in front of the GTW transfer caboose in Carthage. The other photo however was taken in Knightstown and shows two additional Grand Trunk Western transfer cabooses at that location. The caboose in Carthage, and one of the cabooses in Knightstown, had awnings over the open end platforms to protect riders. Those awnings are in pretty rough condition at this point in time. One of the GTW cabooses in Knightstown (the one with the awnings) is GTW road number 75056. The slogan on that particular caboose reads "SAFETY WEARS WELL." I could not make out any other info on the other two cabooses.

BTW, there also appears to be some piece of equipment coupled to one end of one of the transfer cabooses at Knightstown. Can't tell for sure what it is but kind of appears to be some type of hopper. Perhaps a ballast hopper? Appears to be very rusty and no evidence of paint on the small portion visible in the photo.

Les

From the Shirley IN facebook page a few weeks back: https://www.facebook.com/shirleyindiana/
"Spring is coming, but we’re not waiting!
Greenfield carpenter Bruce Harvey is using copies of original plans to craft the cupola for our 1900’s wooden caboose in his shop.
When the weather permits he will be restoring the roof, outer siding and placing the cupola!
This year the poor caboose will have a new look as work moves forward. It's been a long time coming, but it will be a great addition to our historic area.
Thank you for your patience and excitement about this local project."

Wow! Nice work.

A few months old, most recent progress.

PMC -

Thanks for your update from earlier today, with the two photos of New York Central (Big Four) caboose #17646 there at Shirley, Indiana. WOW! They have really done a nice restoration of this last CCC&StL caboose in existence. Somehow, I missed your posted update of three years ago (2/25/20) showing the newly built cupola before it was put on to the caboose body. Whoever rebuilt that cupola, did a fantastic job.

I also went on their FACEBOOK page and after going through a lot of entries, found a photo of the caboose parked alongside their local walking trail and right across from the P&E Shirley depot that they have also preserved.

Kudo's to the folks there in Shirley. It's going to be worth taking a ride down there sometime, to get some photos.

Thanks PMC, for remembering to follow up on this project.


Les

Les, when digging around for photos I found this photo of a preserved Big 4 caboose that looks similar to the one in Shirley, I wonder where this was and what happened to it: https://nycshs.omeka.net/items/show/111166

In this blog article there are a few photos of this caboose in its Artrain colors, taken in 1980:

https://tecumsehjunction.com/2017/03/05/the-artrain-comes-to-tecumseh/