Southern Pacific Caboose #244

Southern Pacific Railroad Caboose #244 was built by the SP Railroad in 1926/27 at the Los Angeles General Shops. It is a model C-30-1, wooden, cupola style caboose number 244. The museum rescued this caboose in 2013 where it had been sitting in the high desert just north of Lancaster, California since 1963.  The dry desert environment had helped to preserve this rare piece of rolling stock.

The model C-30-1 caboose saw service from the 1920s to the 1960s. Faced with an aging fleet and growing traffic, the Southern Pacific Railroad began a major caboose building program in 1917. The new design was the first with a Harriman Common Standard class designation, C-30-1 to indicate car type:  C for caboose, weight 30 tons and design series number 1 for the first series.

Though similar to earlier CA series cars, the new design included several improvements including a riveted steel underframe.  This made the cars studier and safer, especially on runs where helpers pushed trains upgrade.  In the next ten years, SP built over 600 C-30-1s, making them the largest group of cabooses in service on the railroad and its subsidiary lines.  They were also long-lived working all types of freight assignments into the 1960s.