In 1936, Union Pacific discovered that more than 50 percent of its boxcar fleet would need to be completely replaced and began a box car replacement program. Over the next five to six years, new steel box cars in the thousands began arriving, starting with the B-50-19 class in 1936. The new cars were actually assembled by the railroad's shops in Omaha, Grand Island, and Albina. New steel box cars allowed the previous wood box cars to be retired. Actually, it was the wood superstructures that was forcing the retirement of the early B-50-6 cars (built in 1909-1913) and the nearly identical B-50-11 and B-50-13 designs. During the late 1930s, UP found many uses for the refurbished steel underframes from these cars, and new steel cabooses using the B-50-6 underframe was to be another use.
This car building effort that began in 1936 proved that the company car shops were more than capable of constructing steel cars, and that they could be called on in late 1941 to construct new steel cabooses. A drawing of the new caboose design is identified as a CA-3, but the design shows a car with an arch roof and round upper corners on both the body roof and the cupola roof. Floor plans were presented to the operating unions, one dated March 1941 and another dated July 1941. Both floor plans showed a caboose that was 30 feet long, with a centered cupola that extended 3 feet, 9 inches above the roof itself (the cupola of the later CA-3 extended 4 feet, 1 inch above the roof). Additional documentation is missing, so we can only speculate as why this design was set aside in favor of the design delivered from commercial car builder Mount Vernon in 1942.
The resulting design built by Mount Vernon became Union Pacific's trademark, a steel car with a tall, centered cupola, and ample interior room for sleeping during extended crew layovers. Upon completion, the new design received favorable comments in the trade press about its combined economy of construction, and its functionality for train crews, especially the large windows that allowed ample light into the caboose interior. The design proved so successful that its basic features remained unchanged for over 30 years.
When the first steel cabooses began arriving on UP in 1942, there were still 767 wooden cabooses on UP and its three subsidiaries. These 767 wooden cabooses included 353 steel underframe CA-1 cabooses and 170 steel reinforced, wood underframe CA cabooses, along with 167 wooden underframe, Non-Common Standard cabooses and 77 transfer and drover cabooses.
UP's steel cabooses can be categorized into four basic groups, differing mostly in major car body components. The first, the two CA-3 and CA-4 classes, were cupola cabooses with riveted body panels, plain roofs and flat bar end ladder extensions and riveted underframes. The second group, made up of classes CA-5, CA-6, and CA-7, had similar riveted bodies, but had diagonal panel roofs and a safety cage at the top of the end ladder made up of round rod. They also had welded underframes. The third, made up of classes CA-8, CA-9, and CA-10, were also cupola cabooses, but with welded, body panels. The fourth, the CA-11s, were bay window cabooses with compact, bodies.
Other body details further separate the classes. The CA-3s and CA-4s had plain raised roof panels, furnished by Standard Railway Equipment Manufacturing under the "Solid Steel" brand name, also known as "Murphy" roof panels, possibly named after Standard's chief engineer. The CA-5s through CA-10s all had the stronger Standard Railway diagonal roof panels, known as brand-name "StanRay" panels. Both styles of roof panels were riveted along their connecting seams on all cabooses, up to and including the CA-9s. Not until the CA-10s were the roof panels welded at their seams. The CA-5 and CA-6 classes had a plain raised panel next to the rooftop toilet vent, and all classes had a plain raised panel for the stove smoke stack panel.
The location of the small lavatory window has always been another indicator of UP cupola cabooses, with the window being centered vertically with the other side windows on the CA-3 through CA-6. The later CA-7s through CA-10s had the position of their lavatory window lowered by six inches, aligning the window's lower edge with the lower edge of the other side windows.
With the delivery of the 100 welded body CA-8s, the wheelbase length of UP's cupola caboose changed. The previous cars, classes CA-3 through CA-7, all were built with their truck centers at 21 feet 7 inches. With the delivery of the CA-8s, and the subsequent CA-9s and CA-10s, the truck centers were lengthened 23 feet 2-1/2 inches, a difference of 19-1/2 inches, without any change in the actual body length.
Also changing with the new welded bodies was the number of panels used to construct the sides. The riveted CA-3 to CA-7 bodies had nine panels per side, whereas the welded CA-8 to CA-10 bodies had only eight panels per side. Additionally, the size and shape of the end platform steps was changed on the new welded body cars.
All of the steel cupola cabooses were delivered with rooftop running boards, except the CA-10s in 1975. Only the CA-3 class cars had a running board over the cupola, and it was soon removed by the railroad for safety reasons in 1943. It was replaced by a cast plaque reading, "Keep Off Cupola." The federal government's requirement for rooftop running boards was withdrawn in April 1966, stating also that all cars built after October 1966 must not be equipped with running boards, and that by the end of 1983, all cars built before 1966 must have their running boards removed. Research has yet to discover why the CA-9s were delivered in 1967 with running boards, one year after the federal ruling that banned them. Only the CA-10s were delivered without rooftop running boards. To comply with the 1983 date for removal of all running boards, Union Pacific began removing the feature in early 1980, along with any and all ladder rungs and hand holds that allowed access to the roof.
With the end of WWII restrictions were removed and a peacetime economy brewing, 1947 was a year of major change for the Union Pacific. More diesels and passenger cars were delivered to enable the "City" Streamliners to run on a daily schedule and UP wanted to promote these trains by using Armour Yellow wherever it could. Almost all freight car lettering was changed from white to Armour Yellow. The new Livestock Dispatch stock trains had their roller bearing equipped stock cars painted Armour Yellow and the road's mundane black diesel yard switchers also received the new yellow color. The change to yellow included cabooses too.
In June 1947, instructions were issued to change UP's cabooses from freight car red bodies with white letters, to yellow bodies with red letters. The roofs remained freight car red, and the underframe and trucks became black. The repainting of the remaining wooden cabooses (including the transfer cabooses) and the CA-3 and CA-4 classes of steel cabooses began soon thereafter. The two classes of new steel cabooses were just five years old, for the CA-3s, and, three years old, for the CA-4s.
On the wooden cabooses, the roofing material was left unpainted. Although the CS-22 paint standard, updated to July 16, 1929, does not mention the color of mulehide roofing, it does say that all caboose roofs are to be painted Metallic No. 11. It is not known if this is the same as Synthetic Red, or if No. 11 was later changed to No. 33, Freight Car Red.
Mulehide is canvas that is laid over the wooden roof, with hot asphalt brushed on to seal it. Usually, two or three coats of canvas and asphalt was used. This treatment was very waterproof, and very durable, thus the "mulehide" name. But, it also weathered rapidly and needed regular maintenance, which explains why metal roofs were used on freight cars. The color of mulehide would vary from new asphalt black, to highly weathered, old asphalt gray. It was never to be painted. At times, and depending on when it was last treated, the fabric pattern of the canvas is visible.
The Painting, Lettering & Numbering drawing for CA-3 and CA-4 cabooses (303-C-8037) was changed to the new color scheme on June 13, 1947. For unknown reasons, the drawing for the CA and CA-1 classes (303-C-7412) was not changed until January 29, 1948. It took at least three years to repaint the caboose fleet. A newspaper article in the Greeley (Colorado) Tribune of November 28, 1947 mentioned the new yellow color, and that several cabooses in the new color scheme had been seen in the Denver yards alongside several new high-speed stockcars, also in the new scheme.
A steel CA-3, UP 3763, was the first caboose repainted from red to yellow at East Los Angeles, California. It was completed in early July 1947. An aerial photo of the Repair-In-Place (RIP) track at Ogden, Utah, in February 1950 shows nine cabooses just recently painted yellow, and two others partially completed.
The interior colors of Light Green above Dark Green did not change with the conversion to a yellow exterior. In October 1959 the surface finish changed from flat to semi-gloss, and in March 1963 the semi-gloss was changed to full gloss.
Sometime in late 1958 or early 1959, the cupola of UP 25407 was painted with aluminum paint and a large black letter M was added to indicate that the caboose was equipped with a multi-channel radio for use on UP lines and on CB&Q lines. Using aluminum-colored paint only on the cupolas did not provide the clear indication needed for the dedicated pool of cabooses. So to make the specially equipped cabooses more apparent on the caboose track, the entire caboose was painted aluminum color.
Instructions were issued in a letter from D. S. Neuhart, dated November 22, 1960, to paint two UP cabooses with aluminum paint. UP 25402 and 25441 were to be "used in through service with the Burlington between Chicago and Green River." "The sides, ends, and cupola were to painted aluminum. The underframe and all underneath attachments were to be "painted with approved black freight car paint. The words Union Pacific, and initials UP, car numbers, and balance of exterior stenciling to be approved red stencil paint."
Union Pacific painted at least 10 steel cabooses for service on trains operating in a common pool between UP and CB&Q. The bodies of these cabooses were painted aluminum, along with the grab irons, ladders, and other safety appliances, while the car roof and the cupola roof were painted freight car red, with the platforms and underbody being black. The lettering was red. While most of the aluminum-colored UP cabooses had black handrails and grab irons, like their CB&Q counterparts, at least one had red handrails, and grab irons.
Other sources show that these aluminum-colored cabooses were used in a UP/CB&Q pool train, known as the, CDGI, which operated over the Burlington between Chicago and Grand Island, Nebraska, where the train was interchanged with Union Pacific for further movement to Green River. This train also shared a pool of each road's new GP20 locomotives, with UP GP20s showing up in Chicago, and CB&Q GP20s making it as far west as Green River, Wyoming.
All of the aluminum-painted cabooses were the newest cabooses on UP, the CA-7s delivered in 1959, along with several CA-5s. The known road numbers of the cars included: UP 25218, 25221, 25228, 25402, 25407, 25412, 25418, and 25441 (8 cabooses). UP 25402 remained in the aluminum paint scheme until at least 1968. UP 25402 and 25441 were both equipped with the four-foot by six-foot safety slogan panel. - UTAHRAILS
Green River Wyoming - The Union Pacific Railroad is both the framework and inspiration for the city of Green River. Bisected by the UP main line, Green River grew up around the rails. The chuffing of steam locomotives and the horns of diesels have echoed from the bluffs above the town since the railroad arrived in 1868.
People came to Green River from all over the world to work on and around the Great Iron Way. Lives lived on the line range from a 14-year-old boy who swept floors at the depot, retiring more than forty years later as stationmaster, to a machinist who spent his entire working life in the same Green River shops after coming home from World War II.
The railroad brought the outside world into Green River. Hollywood stars were spotted in the depot, generating nearly - but not quite - the excitement of a water stop for the elephants of the Barnum and Bailey Circus train. Artist Thomas Moran painted numerous versions of his “first sketch of the west” showing the escarpments of Tollgate Rock and the Palisades, drawn after stepping off the train in 1870. Explorer John Wesley Powell dropped his three small boats from rail cars directly into the Green River in 1869 to begin his intrepid trip into the last unexplored waterway of the American West.
The rumble and clack of steel wheels on rails and the resonant tones of the horns are the song of Green River - the constant melody of life in a transcontinental railroad town.
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