# Real Steel Caboose - Onalaska City Park



## SailorDon (Jan 6, 2008)

The town of Onalaska, Texas (on Lake Livinston) is building a city park. It has city park type stuff like picnic areas, playground and walking paths. 
IMHO, the centerpiece of the park is a retired Union Pacific caboose. It is in the process of being restored to "display condition". 
This a display that you can walk inside and "feel" the hundreds of thousands of miles (maybe a million miles) of history in that steel shell.
Extra points to Onalaska for such a great idea for a city park!

 
It's 100 degrees out in the sun. Good idea to park in the shade.


 


 


 
The dust in the background is from the road that is being built to get to the city park.



 


 


 
Can anyone decode this? Was this caboose built in 1967?



 
What is a locked center pin? Obviously they want you to remove it from the outside.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Link to inverted and manipulated BLT/RBLT placard, it sure looks to me like 06-67. Now whether that represents June 1967, or is some other form of encoding scheme I have no idea.









UP Caboose BLT/RBLT Placard Picture (.png 3.28MB)[/b]


As for what a center-pin is click the following link and then scroll down to; 1) Body Center Plate, 2) Center-pin.

Hayes Hendricks - Builders of Wooden Railway Cars - Railway Car-Builder's Dictionary A-C[/b]


A locking center-pin refers to the fact that the car body and truck are held together by the center-pin and car body cannot just be lifted off its trucks unless the center-pin locking device is first removed. I believe that it was required that all passenger cars and cabin cars (caboose) had to have locked center-pins.


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## SailorDon (Jan 6, 2008)

Posted By SteveC on 28 Jun 2013 09:01 AM 
Link to inverted and manipulated BLT/RBLT plackard, it sure looks to me like 06-67. Now whether that represents June 1967, or is some other form of encoding scheme I have no idea.









UP Caboose BLT/RBLT Plackard Picture (.png 3.28MB)[/b]



I assumed "BLT" was for "Built". and the worn off lettering sure looked like "06-67". I was thinking June 1967 as the build date, but UP might have had a different code. 
Whatever the build date, it sure is a nice reminder of the golden age of rail, which has now been so automated, many shuttle trains (ususally subway and commuter types) run without any operating personnel on board.


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## Trains (Jan 2, 2008)

Lub, is the date, railroad, and shop that did the lub job., Cots is the same but for air brakes. Lock center pin
is for the trucks so they don't come loose from the caboose. They are locked under the trucks, or inside the
caboose.


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