Trying to pick my era and have come up with these fundamental questions that at one time I knew but now escape me... When did roof walks start to come off boxcars? When were the majority of cabooses pulled from trains?
That's a very good question. I've been giving that some thought as well. I think that in the late 70's and early 80's, they were still running cabooses around here. I think the roofwalks were still commonplace but were just starting to be phased out. I'm hoping someone can firm this up as I'm just getting ready to start collecting my rolling stock.
I believe it was in 1964 or 65 that boxcars were no longer supposed to have catwalks. Railcar builders quit manufacturing boxcars with catwalks, but most built in the 60's or earlier kept their walk until retirement/scrapped in the 80's and early 90's.
Caboose were a commonplace on trains through the 80's, but EOTD/FRED's technology improved and replaced the Caboose rapidly.
I believe that the FRA said that boxcars built after 1965 would not have catwalks and that the brake wheel would be lower on the car body. By 1975 all boxcars in revenue service that were built before 1965 had to be converted to non catwalk status. Maine Central and the Rock are just a few that rebuilt their 40 foot boxcars to these standards. Most class one railroads stopped using the caboose in 1987. Cabooses are still used in "special moves" I found a picture of a brand new ES in BNSF swoosh paint pulling a reactor on a flat car with an old Santa Fe Evans wide vision behind it.
