This caboose was used as an office and living quarters over many years at Pickett’s Nurseries and Garden Supplies on the west side of Hwy. 27 south of Rutherford Road.  Eventually, Di Poce Management acquired the property for redevelopment.  Company owner John Di Poce donated it in late 2014 to the Toronto Railway Historical Association in the name of his brother Sam, who passed away a few months earlier.  Scannell Properties, the development manager for the property also donated to the cost of the transport of the caboose to the Toronto Railway Museum.

On the caboose’s arrival at the museum, a team of volunteers began the task of restoring the exterior and interior of the caboose.  As we already have one caboose with an authentically restored interior, we plan to use the interior of this caboose as an extension of our museum’s operational space.

History

Caboose #79144 was first built by the Eastern Car Company in 1920 as wooden boxcar #424669.  With the wooden boxcars becoming obsolete, the CN rebuilt many of them into cabooses. In December of 1957, the CN rebuilt this boxcar into CN Caboose #79144. It still sits on its original elliptical leaf spring type trucks. Its weight is 17 tons or 34,000 lbs. The overall dimensions are 9’-5” wide x 36’-6” long x 15’-0” tall with wheels on.

The Eastern Car Company Limited was organized in 1912 as a division of the Nova Scotia Steel & Coal Company Limited, which already owned foundry and forging facilities in and near New Glasgow, N.S., of which Trenton is a suburb. The first car order processed through this plant was one for 2,000 steel-framed wood-sheathed, wood-roofed box cars for the Grand Trunk Railway in 1913.

The Eastern Car Company plant has been in continuous operation since 1913, and has produced over 63,500 freight cars since that time. In addition, approximately 9,300 cars were produced for use in Nova Scotia coal and ore mining.

For a more comprehensive history of the Eastern Car Company, click here.