As Bill said, 0579 spent last summer on an isolated track. It is connected now, but we'll just have to see how things go. We are scheduling a small work team in session C to hopefully take the caboose to the C&TS car shop and have everything inspected. Brakes work good; tested with our new compressor. With the approval of the Car Dept, it could then be used on the railroad.
How would it be used ? Don't know. The primary charter caboose is 0306. To carry more than 4 riders they'd have to be real good friends. But I could imagine for special railfan charters 0579 would be prefered until at least 0503 is back in service.