I'm working on updating a roster of DSS&A cabooses and I'm looking for help in determining what ever happened to DSS&A/Soo Line caboose #567? The information I have has the car being sold by the Soo Line circa 1968 and being shipped to Cayce, S.C.. It was stored at the Guignard Brickyard for several years and by 1979 the car was moved and set up at as The Red Caboose Gift Shop at an unknown location (to me). After this point in time I have no record or information on the whereabouts or the fate of this car.

I'd be very interested in any additional information on what ultimately happened to this caboose? I don't know if it is still around or not.

Bill Buhrmaster

According to this photo it ended up in Cayce, SC by the mid-seventies,as you noted:

http://www.railpictures.net/photo/265136/

A woman in New Jersey is living in one, but I have no clue if it is 567:

https://tinyhouseblog.com/tiny-house-co ... e-caboose/
Interesting, she said she and her ex husband responded to an ad in the Wall Street Journal for cabooses, that may be how Soo Line disposed of them. Your best bet might be to ask someone who had a business in Cayce in the seventies if they remember the gift shop, it is small enough of a town that someone is likely to remember it. The photo of the caboose as a gift shop has a motel behind it, and I think that is a Best Western sign you can barely see the top of behind the caboose. Could you buy Coors beer in the south in the seventies? I remember a bad movie with Burt Reynolds in which he was smuggling it in.

I doubt the Soo Line had to advertise at all, since by the time their wood cabooses were deemed surplus, they were about the only source of cars that evoked the image of 'the little red caboose' left in the country. I remember John Bergene, the Soo's PR man in the seventies, telling me that the railroad had on file about three times as many requests for the cars as they had remaining cars.

There were several groups of cars that went up east en mass. The Whippany River operation in New York acquired, I think, six or seven of them. I also recall hearing a 'real estate developer' in New Jersey took several; don't know if this was a reference to the Whippany cars or not. I'm sure over time these cars spread out through secondary sales.

I've seen photos of one of the Soo cars being restored in Naples, Florida of all places.

That would be a match, from the link I posted: "Marcia Weber lives full-time in a Soo Line train caboose that was built in 1909. She purchased the caboose with her husband at the Tunerville Station in Whippany, New Jersey in 1975 from an ad in the Wall Street Journal that simply said “wooden cabooses for sale.”" So I doubt this is the same caboose as the South Carolina "cigs by the carton gift shop".

Oh, that was a given. The distinctive ladder gives away the origin of "Marcia's caboose" as one of the 1909 cars built by Haskell & Barker for the Wisconsin Central, likely 99075 which went to Whippany:http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/soo/soo99075akg.jpg
Not the same car as Bill is looking for. From the list on the Fallen Flags web site, I don't see any ex-DSS&A cars going to Whippany, but the list may not be complete.

To me the architectural style of the hotel building screams that it was built by Holiday Inn.

It's neat how many of Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson buildings survive in recognizable condition.

Brian

Here is the Best Webern logo from 1974-1991, it looks like a match. A lot of old Best Westerns have been rebranded but still part of Best Western, there is one in Eugene OR called "Motel 66" (less than a mile from a new BW), but with BW wastebaskets, receipts, etc., and it looks like this one though the layout is u-shaped with the entrances on the inside. If the motel behind the caboose is still there I'll bet it is no longer a Best Western brand motel.

Here are some corrections and updates on Marcia Weber's caboose. She and her former husband purchased it from the Morristown & Erie Railroad Company(predecessor to today's Morristown & Erie Railway, Inc.) not the "Tunerville Station", when the old M&E went into receivership. The M&ERR had established its own, short lived steam tourist operation under the name Whippany Toonerville RR. following the Morris County Central RR's move to the NYS&W at Newfoundland, N.J. I believe there were eight total Soo cabooses purchased for the operation but none ever saw use. They were spotted on the old freight house track at Whippany Station upon arrival where they sat until sold by the court following the M&ERR's bankruptcy in in 1978. The court-appointed Trustee, Justice John A. Francis, almost immediately shut down the Whippany Toonerville and began selling off the assets following the bankruptcy in June of 1978

I was a Brakeman, Extra Conductor and Extra Engineer for the M&ERR during this time and handled every one of the cabooses as they came and went.


Some may have noticed that the WTRR's steam locomotive No. 148 (Ex Florida East Coast RR, U.S. Sugar Co., ex Black River & Western RR. 148 was repurchased by U.S. Sugar Co. and is now back in Florida undergoing restoration in their shop.) was letter Whippany River on the tender. Late owner Samuel T. Freeman did not like the Toonerville name and would not let the M&ER put it on his engine. The M&ERR was able to use the Toonerville name as the copywrite had expired after Toonerville Trolley cartoonist and creator, Fontaine Fox's family failed to renew it.