I know someone whose parents have their own caboose. With a fainting couch, yet! Of course, moving one into your backyard can be a little tricky.

(Photos &c. at http://www.spcoast.com/wp668/)

When I was twelve or fourteen or something, Dad read about someone putting a caboose in his yard for an extra room (he likes strange homes as much as I do and spent years investigating rammed-earth building techniques: I gave him a tree-house book for Christmas). I yearned for that -- had my hopes up for years. I'd been in a caboose one time, so I knew just how cool it would have been.

To dreeeeeam... the impossible dreeeeeam...

Ron gives more details, and an asking price ($20K), here.

This brings back fond memories of the times my wife and I stayed at the Caboose Motel, a bit south of Mt Shasta.

At least it's relatively easy to ship, for something so large. As long as it'll go by rail, that is.

This moose does _not_ need a caboose.

That is all.

I'm most intrigued by the way Jim posted this FROM THE FUTURE dun dun duuuuun.

I'm most intrigued by the way Jim posted this FROM THE FUTURE dun dun duuuuun.

Fix'd.

Well really, and c'mon, he was going to Arisia....

There's a guy about five miles west of me who's restoring a locomotive in his yard. I should pass the word.....

That would be cool as a travel trailer. Mount a tire undercarriage, jack it up, haul it off.

Not listed on a cork board, but there are other cool vehicles for sale these days...

Ahh, for a spare $29 million...

In the 1966 Batman movie, Batman calls Vice Admiral Fangschliester at the Pentagon about recently sold submarines.

Fangschliester: Answer affirmative, Batman! We disposed of a war surplus submarine last Friday. A pre-atomic model. To some chap named, uh, "P. N. Guin".

Batman: P. N. Guin?

Robin: The Penguin!

Batman: Did this... "P. N. Guin" leave an address?

Fangschliester: No, just a post office box number. Would you like it?

Batman: No, thank you, Admiral. [gritting his teeth] You've been very helpful.

Fangschliester: Avast and belay, Batman. Your tone sounds rather grim. We haven't done anything foolish, have we?

Batman: [slowly] Disposing of pre-atomic submarines to persons who don't even leave their full addresses?! Good day, Admiral!

[They hang up.]

Fangschliester: Gosh!

My daughter is four and loves trains in general. A local museum has a restored caboose from the 40s -- it's not fully finished yet but it's pretty cool inside.

The only plots I can think of for which a criminal mastermind would want a caboose are rather far-fetched and possibly steampunk.

abi @ 15... You mean, someone like this criminal mastermind?

Years ago, I knew someone who lived in a caboose in one of the New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia. He had it very well set up, it was really slick. Not for the claustrophobic, though. :)

I am ideologically opposed to paying for caboose.

My company could buy that caboose for a mere couple months worth of our rent in midtown.

If it's more than about 1400 square feet inside, we could talk, but I suspect the landlord will not be cool about us breaking the lease.

I googled on CABOOSE INTERIOR and came up with this enticing portfolio. Now, if this was mine, I expect there would be some kind of shelving up above, in the corner of wall and ceiling, in as much of the place as possible, for picture books and sheet music. (Books that were all text would be in digital format, as much as possible -- sheet music too, I daresay.) It's just kind of creepy to see this place with not even a single book sitting on a horizontal surface, but what a swell little joint.

We have a caboose set up as a museum, since the railroad junction was what caused the city. Kids always love looking at it and turning the wheel inside, and so forth.

We have a caboose set up as a museum, since the railroad junction was what caused the city.

Which city would that be?

did anyone else read "The Boxcar Childred"?
That series has always stuck with me...and a caboose...sheer heavenly.

Jim, #22, Manassas City. It's the junction that went into the Shenandoah Valley that put a city here, then led two battles of the Civil War here, and remade the city afterwards. Here 'tis, that's a reproduction of the original train station behind it -- part of that is a museum and the rest is actually a train station for Amtrak and local commuter rail.

If you're not ready to buy your own caboose, you can try out the experience of sleeping in one at Two Rivers State Recreation Area in Nebraska.

A nursery near us has a B&O I-5 caboose. You could also stay at the Red Caboose Motel, which is in Strasburg right near the Strasburg RR and the RR Museum of Pennsylvania and the National Toy Train Museum.

Drop by the green room on monday and say hi

Marilee @ 24 I'm told there's a caboose as mini museum in Vienna, VA as well.

Meanwhile, at the opposite end from the caboose...

Well, I learned something today: now I know what a caboose is. It was extremely entertaining trying to work it out from the comments, though.

Comments 6 and 18 were not helpful in this process.

You still see a few repurposed railway carriages in Britain, normally as part of transport cafes - much commoner sixty years ago, when building materials weren't easy to come by.

abi @ #15:

One of Philip Pullman's Sally Lockhart novels features a criminal mastermind with a dastardly plot revolving around a railway carriage with cunning, and arguably steampunk, modifications.

I don't think it's actually a caboose, though.

Paul A @ 31... I don't think it's actually a caboose

A pullman car then?

Serge #32: Very sexist vehicle that. When I was a boy, and I'd see the carriages marked "Wagons-lit" go by on the tracks near Clapham Junction, I wondered what the unlit ones were for.

Comment 19 might help you work out an extended metaphorical slang use of the term.

thanate>, #28, so there is!

ajay, #30, the caboose is not a regular car -- it's at the end of the train and the train staff slept in it, taking turns as needed. There aren't cabooses on trains anymore, other than some private ones.

There's a caboose and an engine at the Children's Museum in Indianapolis. That's one of the exhibits I like there, and a perennial one. (Once you get the train into the museum, it's pretty much there permanently.)

One of the most interesting museums I've ever been in is the London Transport Museum. I'm pretty sure it's got at least one locomotive inside its walls.

It's a neat place.

The last restaurant I worked at was built in an old railroad depot, and there was a caboose out back serving as the office. It had as many excellent built-in cupboards and drawers as the pantry in the 1913 apartment I used to live in.

For people that want to own a caboose but never could afford one. Check out www.dogpatchandwesternrr.com