I bought this model caboose at a garage sale a couple years ago because it bore the old Northern Pacific markings. A lot of history surrounds that rail line as it ran through North Dakota. They started laying tracks in 1970, but didn’t see completion until September, 1883 when former president Ulysses S. Grant drove in the golden spike in Montana. The company wore their name until 1970 when it merged with other lines to form the Burlington Northern Railroad.
The caboose tagged along at the end of trains until the 1980s when it became replaced by a little device called either a “Flashing Rear End Device” (FRED) or an “End of Train Device” (EOD).
The little square house or cupola on top of the caboose is generally attributed to an old conductor who wrote in 1898, “During the '60s I was a conductor on the C&NW. One day late in the summer of 1863 I received orders to give my caboose to the conductor of a construction train and take an empty boxcar to use as a caboose. This car happened to have a hole in the roof about two feet square. I stacked the lamp and tool boxes under the perforation end and sat with my head and shoulders above the roof ... (Later) I suggested putting a box around the hole with glass in, so I could have a pilot house to sit in and watch the train.”
