July 1, 2000

Roger,

Thought you might like to have the following information regarding the subject caboose.

This car was one of fifty cars built by Despatch Shops, Inc., East Rochester, New York of which 39 were NYC 18156-18194; 10 were for the Detroit Terminal, DT 33-42; and one was the CI 67. At he time of the PC this cars was identified as Class N6A and carried the same Class into Conrail. It was renumbered by Conrail to CR 18005.

All of the cars in what became PC/CR Class N6A and the N9 cars built by PC were fitted with the original trucks from the 40 foot box cars from which the underframes were obtained. These trucks were eventually changed to Barber-Bettendorf Swing Motion Caboose Trucks on the NYC/PC/CR cabooses.

Since the box cars from which the underframes were obtained were built in the early 1940's these cars today could not operate in regular railroad services due to the FRA 50 year age limit unless individual cars were given a waiver by the FRA.

The later versions of the transfer caboose were the Class N11 cars built for the PC and others by DSI and had the same underframe as the NYC Lot 919 cabooses, currently Class N7B. Since the underframes were new, 1969 and 1970, the majority of these cars should still be around.

John R. Reehling