I would like to know when the last cabooses were purchased for the SCL. Did they buy new ones or use the ones they have at the time of the merger?

Thanks in advance to all who may help.

Sincerely, Dan Edwards

-- Daniel Taylor Edwards (mmeedwards@charter.net), September 07, 2002

Answers

I'll be going solely by memory here so bear with me. SCL continued the M-5 program after the merger; ACL rebuilt the first M-5s from boxcars in 1964 and SCL continued turning them out until 1970. The first SCL M-5 was 0787, the last 01036. SCL also rebuilt the ex-SAL 5600 class cabooses into class M-6 around 1970. SCL constructed a group of new cabooses, the M-8 extended vision cabs, in 1974. They were rebuilt from boxcars at Rocky Mount and painted in the orange and black Family Lines scheme. I believe there were 45, series 01150- 01194. In 1981, a group of "transfer" style cabooses was built by Fruit Growers Express in Alexandria, Va., and assigned to Family Lines partners L&N and Clinchfield and carried initials for those two roads. While technically not SCL cabooses, they were assigned class M-9 on paper (no class was stenciled on the cabooses themselves) and appeared frequenly on SCL trains. They were painted in the gray FLS scheme.

-- Larry Goolsby (LGoolsby@aphsa.org), September 09, 2002.