Great Western Coffee Shop

The Train Manager or Conductor was formerly the Guard or Brakesman.  Looking back into early Victorian railway history, there were no continuos brakes all along a train and the driver of the locomotive had to whistle for brakes to be applied, locomotive brakes alone (even if they were fitted) being inadequate to halt the train. If the train should have become divided, without a through brake pipe the guard / brakesman was all the more important because he was left alone on an otherwise free-rolling collection of carriages and wagons.   There were numerous accidents ...

So - how did the brakesman know what was going on along his train from his position at the rear?  The UK's loading gauge is tight, and narrow lookout window were just about all that could be provided on the side of a brakevan, with a narrowed main body to help the chap see forward.    In the USA, with a more genetous loading gauge, the "Caboose" car became the iconic tail vehicle on the train.

On a visit to Portland, Maine last week I had the opportunity to travel a mile or two in a restored narrow gauge caboose of 1904 vintage - no longer with the braking equipment, alas for (I think) the train had continuous breaks - but never the less interesting to see.

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/caboose01.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/caboose02.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/caboose03.jpg)

(http://www.mrug.org.uk/lib/caboose04.jpg)

The man in the caboose* had the easy job - and only one insufficient brake. Think for the poor men who had to run along the roof walkways applying the handbrakes on each individual box car. You can see one on the corner of car 27 in the 1904 photogrph.

*the TOPS system of wagon tracing on the UK railways introduced in the 1970s originated in the USA. It is why all BR brake vans had the leading three letter code of CAB for caboose - or so I was told on a University railway society yard visit in 1978

What do you mean "looking back into early Victorian railway history"? There were still unfitted goods trains on BR 30 years ago.

Love that last photo!  :)

I have wondered about the term "Caboose" - which has struck me as an interesting and exotic word.   It would seem it came from the Dutch / Low German word "Kabuse" which is/was a boat's deckhouse.

In the early days, ALL trains were unfitted so it was the generality.  I think it wasn't until the Armargh accident of 1889 that a law came in requiring all passenger trains in the UK to have a continuous brake that defaulted on - and that after many accidents in which trains couldn't stop in time, or when they broke in two and the part without the locomotive came to grief.  [[ data subject to correction - on a very poor connection here this evening ]]