Milwaukee 992040

Rib-Side Bay Window Caboose

Railroad shops were typically very well equipped, able to handle major locomotive and car overhauls. Some, like the Soo Line's Shoreham shops in Minneapolis, were even known to construct the occasional steam locomotive from the ground up. The Milwaukee Road, reasoning that their own shops could construct equipment more cheaply that outside vendors, took things a bit further. Their shops in Milwaukee, Wisconsin churned out some six hundred locomotives (as big and modern as northerns,) most of their streamlined passenger car fleet, and tens of thousands of freight cars.

The Milwaukee also employed its own design department, which produced some innovative designs unique to the Milwaukee Road. One example was their rib-sided cars. The ribbed siding was thin sheet metal (to reduce weight) made of high-strength Cor-Ten steel (for strength) and embossed with ribs (for added rigidity.) It was first introduced on the 1937 "Hiawatha" streamlined passenger cars, and subsequently found its way into cabooses and freight cars. In MTM's collection, branch-line caboose 2756 sports this material. (Really a triple combine, built in 1938, it has a lot in common with the Hiawatha cars.)

When the Milwaukee Shops switched from wooden to steel caboose construction, the ribbed siding was a natural choice. Also natural was using a bay window instead of a cupola, which had safety and visibility advantages with increasingly tall freight cars. Starting with number 01800, 75 were built in 1939, 25 in 1940, 25 in 1941, 25 in 1944, 65 in 1946, 50 in 1949, and 50 in 1951. Each batch could be considered a "model year," with evolutionary changes being introduced with each new batch. In 1956, due the changing economics the Milwaukee changed to an outside caboose builder, and the rib-sided era ended. The last home-built rib-side was 02114.

Caboose 02040 is one of the fifty 1949-built cars, which were numbered 02015 to 02064.

MTM acquired 992040 from the Dakota County fairgrounds in Farmington, MN, as part of a trade. It is currently stored inside the roundhouse because its roof leaks.

Consolidated Stencil:

Other markings on the car include the stencil "Trucks overhauled MILW MS 5-78" on the side sill, directly above the toilet drain. And on the diagonnaly opposite corner, on the end sheet a foot above the steps, is an engraved metal plaque concerning the "Freightmaster Cushioning Device Type M-EC".

Sources:

1. "Milwaukee Road's Rib-Side Cabooses" by Jeff Kehoe; data p15.