The Story of the Caboose

The following article was written by Alaina Potrikus and appeared in the local paper:

In the heyday of the railroad industry, the caboose was the place to be. It was the office, the place where the conductor sorted through the manifests detailing the cargo carried by each of the cars. It was an emergency repair shop, where engineers stored extra tools in case something went wrong on the rails. And it was a lounge, complete with refrigerator and stove.

"It was the heratbeat of a train," said Rick Stevens, owner of ZEMS Ice Cream and Mini Golf in Canastota, NY.

These days, the CSX trains that lumber through downtown Canastota aren't the only reminder of the village's ties to the railroad. Stevens has installed a caboose, complete with railroad ties outside his business on Main Street just across the street from where the Lehigh Valley Freight Station used to stand.

The company made its last run out of Canastota in 1968, said Munnsville train buff Sam reeder. Stevens' caboose isn't the original that chugged through Canastota - known as the 95108 - but it's pretty much an identical twin. "They were all built the same," Reeder said. "It just had a different number on it."

Stevens bought the caboose at an auction in Albrightsville, Pa., for $7,000. It was delivered last Mother's day, a present, he jokes, for his wife, Penny.

It's painted cherry red, and the letters "PFD" adorn the side in yellow script. They stand for Philomena's Floral Depot because the car doubled as a garden center before it made its way to Canastota.

Stevens hopes to replicate the Lehigh Valley caboose by giving the caboose a fresh coat of paint with a black diamond on its side. he has tickets and pictures from the old tail line that he'll eventually hang inside and hopes to install a gift shop.

"There's a lot of history in this area," Stevens said. "This is my way of bringing it back."

For now, he enjoys giving tours, bringing children inside the caboose, ice cream cones in hand, and showing them around.

There's the old steel toilet that wasn't used unless the train was moving. There's an old cooler, where ice kept food cold, and a coal stove bolted to the floor.

"They get a big kick out of it," Stevens said. Trains don't come with cabooses anymore because they've outlived their purpose. From a cupola, or a raised observation post in the caboose's roof, the cunductor would keep an eye on the boxcars. "Now, freight cars are twice as long, making this practice a thing of the past," Reeder said.

"Nowadays, it's all superseded by the good old computer," Reeder said. "He just got put out of business."

But the caboose is getting plenty of business in Canastota. ZEMS soon will start werving food - or "chew choos" - and Stevens hopes to install tables so patrons can eat lunch inside the caboose.