Re: An Interesting Photo & Some Corrections-WSL Caboose #4

That was my point in my former comments. Some of the likely reasons for being located there, might be if it was in service in camp on a weekend town visit or it may have been placed in temporary backup service for a town caboose or it may have been in town for its own service or ...

The guys could't remember exactly when it joined duty with the Camp 44 camp switcher. The Camp 44 switcher duties were less involved than they were at Camp 45, which partially explains its delayed service activation. The short run from camp to the transfer landing wasn't long enough to really justify bothering with a caboose, but some longer runs to Burner Siding or Hanlon Jct. made it more useful. I'm quite sure the #6 was listed on inventory by 1948, but I'm not sure when it was first added.

On the other hand, the caboose and camp switcher at Camp 45 became almost inseparable from the beginning, especially with several (4-5) daily trips to Fleming with 14 mile round trips and occasional runs to Niagara. The #6 became such an dedicated part of the Camp 45 switching duties, that it became the lone West Side caboose to acquire an uncoupling lever that easy allowed it to be added on the fly to the loads on the transfer siding.

Getting back to your original observation, nothing out of service was stored on the loading track and almost always involved short term spotting for cars about to be used or just coming off use. On a Sunday photo like this, it was common to see a caboose spotted there for the Monday noon train which would be added to the empties from the Double's morning return that would allow that caboose to make the its full run back to camp with the empties.

Tim McCartney