Transcription
The railroad freight conductor's affection for his caboose is legendary, but James P. Bullard probably will be the first to have his car retired with him.
Bullard, who lives at Eldon, Mo., and Caboose 18058, both 45-year veterans on the Rock Island Railroad, will be retired at a special ceremony at 11 a.m. Saturday at Union Station. The caboose will go to the Museum of Transport on Barrett Station Road, St. Louis County, while the conductor will catch up on his fishing. He is rounding out a half century of railroading, having started with the Burlington in 1899.
Bullard, a native of New York State, joined the Rock Island as a brakeman at Eldon in 1904, the same year the caboose was placed in service. He became "skipper" of No. 18058 in 1926, when, with other Eldon employes of the railroad, he organized a "Get-the-Business Committee" to stimulate freight traffic.
A portable typewriter was tied to a pine board in the caboose, and Rock Island officials say it thereby became the first piece of equipment of its kind to be used as a railroad "business car."
While a caboose is known to railroaders by many slangy names, including "the crummy" and "ape cage," a freight conductor and crew usually become fond of the car regularly assigned to their run. It has been reported that some conductors lay off when the cabooses they are accustomed to are in the shop, rather than make the run with a substitute caboose.
Bullard points out No. 18058 has been a glamorous caboose, having been shown at the Missouri State Fair in 1928, at Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition in 1934, and at a petroleum exposition in Tulsa and at the Texas Centennial in 1936.