This Kodachrome slide has always resonated with me.
In North American practice, cabooses and stack trains were equipment from different eras that just barely overlapped.
During the mid-1980s, most class 1 freight carriers banished cabooses to operational backwaters. True, cabooses held out in rare instances (some can still be found), but they had been made redundant by technological changes and their once-standard operation finally came to an end as a side-effect of deregulation.
Another effect of deregulation was a more progressive environment that favored double-stacked container trains.
So, as cabooses were rapidly sidetracked, stack trains were becoming common on principal trunk lines. Since intermodal operations tended to run from terminal to terminal, these trains were among the first to lose cabooses.
I can count the number of caboose-ended double-stack trains I photographed on one hand.
Exposed on Kodachrome 25 using a Leica M2 with 90mm Elmarit.
I especially like this view in a snow squall of a Norfolk Southern train carrying an Norfolk & Western caboose on the back of a Maersk stack train that had just come east over the old Nickel Plate route.
The background is the colossal and completely abandoned Buffalo Central Terminal, designed by Fellheimer & Wagner, and constructed by the New York Central during the false optimism of the roaring 1920s, only to open on the eve of the Great Depression.
Buy my book Railway Depots, Stations & terminals published by Voyageur Press to learn more about Fellheimer & Wagner’s stations
Buffalo Terminal is still extant, and there is a movement underway to restore it, but I’m not sure about the details. The last time I saw it was a few years ago, and it looked even more decrepit than in my 1989 photo. And, yes, I’ve featured it in several books. The photo with the Seaboard System C30-7 is another favorite color slide. The sun came out just at the right moment. BS.
Hi Brian, It is a beautiful photo depicting both the past – the abandonment of passenger service, the present – deregulation and hope as well as the future – Intermodals and so on
By the way, I happened to see this terminal in one of your books, not in Railway depots, but in your GE and EMD, there is a photo of a Seaboard C30-7 passing through the Buffalo central, it was magnificent!
Is the terminal still present and are there any possibilities for revival?
Hi Brian, It is a beautiful photo depicting both the past – the abandonment of passenger service, the present – deregulation and hope as well as the future – Intermodals and so on
By the way, I happened to see this terminal in one of your books, not in Railway depots, but in your GE and EMD, there is a photo of a Seaboard C30-7 passing through the Buffalo central, it was magnificent!
Is the terminal still present and are there any possibilities for revival?