Cabooses were often assigned to a specific conductor in earlier days. If you’ve followed this blog for the past few years, you’ve likely noticed how caboose interiors would be “customized” by the crew (usually the conductor).

We’re in Canadian, Texas and the freight train crews are changed at this point. A yard crew is exchanging the cabooses on the train on which Jack Delano has been riding, with the new conductor receiving his personal ride. Note the “wig-wag” target on the caboose cupola. Many Santa Fe cabooses utilized this interesting and somewhat unusual device during this time. The purpose was for signaling the engineer in those days before radios. The wig-wag was mounted on an arm (barely visible in the photograph), and had a lever extended into the cupola. This allowed the conductor to swing the target in an ark. There were essentially two signals: waving the target back and forth was a “highball” (the engineer was free to accelerate the train up to speed). Holding the signal straight up meant to stop. I believe these signals also had white and red lights mounted near the target center for nighttime use, with white indicating the highball, and red to stop the train.

Steam locomotive #1135 was holding the yard assignment on this day in March of 1943. This little 2-6-2 was in a group of “Prairie” locomotives delivered by Baldwin in 1902-3. Originally built as a 4-cylinder Vauclain compound, the locomotive was eventually converted to a conventional twin cylinder arrangement as shown here.