Cabooses

The first incarnation of the Columbus & Greenville Railway, formed in 1920, received all of its infrastructure and much of its original equipment from its parent, the Southern Railway in Mississippi. Included in the inheritance of equipment from the Southern was a large batch of 13 classic wooden cabooses. Originally built (most in 1894) for the growing Southern Railway system, the cabooses found their way to the Mississippi portion of the Southern in the winter of 1915. When the C&G formed as an independent railroad five years later, the cabooses remained on the property and were formally purchased from the Southern within a few years. Remarkably, most of these wooden cabins remained in service on the Delta Route's daily freights well into the late 1960s, and many could be found in storage in the Columbus yards in the 1970s. After the long era of the wooden cabooses had played out, the C&G secured a number of steel cabooses from a variety of sources, including a batch of Illinois Central cars with small side-service doors.