Revered railcar: Western Pacific caboose joins museum collection at Ogden Union Station
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- The Utah State Railroad Museum’s newly acquired Western Pacific Railroad CA-14 caboose, pictured in an undated photo.
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- This undated photo shows the interior of the Utah State Railroad Museum’s recently acquired Western Pacific Railroad CA-14 caboose. Museum officials said the public will be allowed to access the interior of the caboose during special events.
OGDEN — A long-sought piece of local railroad history has finally made its way into the Utah State Railroad Museum’s collection.
Last week, Ogden City announced in a press release that the Museums at Union Station has acquired and added a Western Pacific Railroad CA-14 caboose to the Eccles Rail Center.
Hope Eggett, administrator of the Museums at Union Station, told the Standard-Examiner on Monday the caboose was recently purchased from the Inland Northwest Rail Museum of Reardan, Washington.
“This new acquisition is our Western Pacific caboose No. 438,” she said. “It was built in 1955 for Western Pacific — which is one of the railroads that was actually founded in Utah — and it was used on freight trains all the way up until the ’80s. It’s been in preservation since 1989.”
She said the caboose is a piece museum officials had been hoping to come across.
“A few years ago, we acquired a Western Pacific locomotive that is the only other Western Pacific piece of equipment that we have in our collection,” she said. “And most of our other locomotives have a caboose that we’ve paired with it, but our Western Pacific locomotive was lonely there, so we were on the hunt for a Western Pacific caboose and this one happened to come up for sale.”
According to the release, only 13 CA-14 cabooses survive, but according to Eggett, it was already a bit of a rarity when it was in service.
“CA-14 cabooses were specifically created for Western Pacific,” she said. “They have a few different features, like a conductor’s window, so it looks a little bit different from other styles of cabooses. A real rail fan will be able to take one look at it and realize that it’s a Western Pacific (caboose).”
She said that the 13 surviving examples of this type of caboose are mostly on private property or are being used for other purposes rather than public display.
Eggett added that the caboose arrived at the Utah State Railroad Museum in excellent shape.
“The Inland Northwest Rail Museum had it painted back into Western Pacific colors when they acquired it, so it still looks absolutely great,” she said. “It’s got the iconic red-orange color and the Western Pacific markings on it. Something I’m particularly excited about — the caboose’s inside is actually in pretty great condition as well, so we’re going to have people be able to tour the inside of it as well during our special events.”
The public’s first opportunity to actually get an inside look at the caboose is only a few weeks away. The city’s press release notes that the caboose will be open as part of the museum’s Free Admission RAMP Day on July 19 from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. in conjunction with the Ogden Arts Festival.
Eggett said that plans are to open the caboose up to the public during other special events going forward.
“During regular operating hours, we often don’t have the staffing to allow people to safely enter the cars, but we hope to open it up on other special occasions in the future as well,” she said.
She added that they are excited to have the new caboose in the collection to help in continuing to tell the Western Pacific Railroad’s story.
“It’s always a great day to preserve rail history, and that’s really our point as a museum — to be able to preserve these pieces of history and allow the new generations to make really meaningful connections and to understand the importance of the past in their lives today,” she said. “There’s nothing more exciting than helping a small child or a grown adult make that wonderful connection with the past that happened here at the station and in Utah’s railroading history.”
