For more than a century, the caboose rode at the tail end of the train — part office, part kitchen, part bunkhouse for the conductor and rear brakeman who kept watch over the cars ahead.
From the raised cupola, the crew could see the whole train and spot trouble: a hotbox smoking on an axle, a shifted load, a dragging brake. Down below were a coal stove, a coffee pot, fold-down bunks and a desk where the conductor kept the waybills that told each car where it was going.
No. 308 was part of a 25-car order, numbered 300–324, built for the Virginian Railway by the St. Louis Car Company. West Virginia's Department of Tourism dates this caboose to 1949, while the museum's earlier record describes the order as built in 1948–49.
Our restored Virginian Railway caboose #308 still wears its road markings. Step aboard and you can see exactly how a crew lived and worked the line — the narrow galley, the red-painted floor, and the lamp that lit their long nights on the rails.
More photographs
Tap any photo to see it larger.