CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - The railroad has been tied to Cheyenne since the city’s founding in 1867. That is when it was selected as the point where the Union Pacific railroad would cross Crow Creek.
And while the interstate highways and the advent of the airplane have forever changed the role that trains have in American society, there is still plenty of railroad history to be found here - if one knows where to look.
Now a group of dedicated railroad history buffs has decided to bring a piece of that history back to the public.
Three years ago, the High Plains Railroad Preservation Association got its hands on an authentic Union Pacific caboose built in 1913. Since then, the group has put in many painstaking hours to renovate the caboose and bring it back to its original condition.
And from now through October, the public will have a chance to explore the caboose. It has been hauled to the Cheyenne Steamers miniature railroad next to the Cheyenne Ice and Events Center in west Cheyenne.
On Friday, Michael Pannell and several colleagues brought the caboose to the ice center on West Lincolnway from a decommissioned Atlas missile bunker east of town. That’s where they have been restoring it.
Pannell said the caboose is known as a “CA,” the first in a line of cabooses used for Union Pacific passenger and freight trains from the early 20th century through the 1960s.
“The original wooden cabooses were lettered, so you had CA, then CA-1 through CA-7,” Pannell said. “This was part of a batch of 125 they built in 1913. There are no more, so this is totally unique.”
The caboose rode the rails from 1913 through 1946, when it was sold to a railroad employee who used it as temporary housing east of Cheyenne.
“He lived in it for five years while he built his house behind it,” Pannell said, adding that once the home was built, the caboose stayed there for decades.
“It was used by children. Some friends of mine actually played in it as kids in the ’80s and ’90s. One day, they took me out there and it was utterly derelict - no windows, no glass, the roof was missing; it was just falling to pieces.”
Pannell acquired the caboose in early 2012, and he and his friends in the High Plains Railroad Preservation Association set about piecing it back together.
He said one of the first and biggest concerns was repairing the shape of the caboose, which had been bent from decades of misuse and exposure.
“The whole body was twisted, so we had to pull a chain through the middle and try to pull the twist out of it,” he said. “We got a brand new roof; we’ve rebuilt all the cupboards and benches inside from original UP drawings we found for it.”
Jeff Jeffers, another member of the group, said the caboose played a key role in the management of freight and passenger trains. It served as a home away from home for the train’s brakeman and conductor. It held both living amenities and an elevated seating area that allowed them a view of the entire train.
“The caboose, that was their business office,” Jeffers said. “The brakeman sat up there and watched for wheel fires.”
Typically, the conductor would be given a caboose, which would travel with him on whatever trains he was responsible for.
Pannell said that while the Preservation Association caboose is “about 85 percent” renovated, there are still historic amenities members would like to add while it’s on display at the ice center.
He said he still wants to get the caboose back onto “a truck,” the wheeled chassis that would let the caboose travel on rails.
“We’re partnering with the city and its West Edge project, and eventually we want all of our rolling stock on rails (in west Cheyenne),” Pannell said. “We want these on spurs behind the buildings there to be used as cafes, restaurants, shops, which is just perfect.”
In the meantime, Pannell said the High Plains Railroad Preservation Association is continuing to raise money to renovate several other historic vehicles.
Those include a pair of late-19th/early-20th century Pullman cars and a 1954 British double-decker bus.
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Information from: Wyoming Tribune Eagle, https://www.wyomingnews.com
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