On the way back to Dallas today, we made a stop in Baird. We've been here once before and here is the LINK to previous stop. Today, we are hoping to revisit Primal Brewing, but it is no longer here. Well, how about a stop at the visitor center. It wasn't open during our last visit and learning more about the small towns in Texas is fun for both of us. The visitor center is located in the old Texas and Pacific Railway Depot. The Texas and Pacific Railway arrived here in 1880, platting a town near the work camp of Matthew Baird, surveyor and engineer. In 1881, the T&P built a roundhouse and immigrant house, and moved a depot building to this new railroad division point. The town of Baird prospered and became county seat in 1883. A frame depot built in 1905 converted to storage when replaced by this two-story brick depot in 1911. The prairie style building features a decorative belt course, overhanging eaves, low-pitched roof, and unusual Flemish style parapet. In 1977, the railroad discontinued use of the building, which still recalls the town's importance as a shipping point. Pictured below is the view from the depot. Courthouse at the other end.
Inside the depot is a small museum. Take a peek around. We are told that each building in the town had one of these inside.
LOVE this!!! Check out the menu on the rail.
The Bankhead National Highway - super interesting. The Texas 1 Bankhead (almost 900 miles) comprised nearly one-third of the total length of the national road. The Texas Bankhead became part of the route known as the "Broadway of America." After numbers replaced names on national highways in 1926, the Bankhead route from Texarkana became part of US-67 to Dallas.
Spotting something new is always fun. This fly net is designed to keep those horrid horseflies from creating misery. It is made of leather strands.
A closer picture of one in use.
So . . . I learned a ton about the cute little caboose. Thought I'd share here. It's a read. "For more than a century, the caboose was a fixture at the end of every freight train in America. Like the red schoolhouse and the red barn, the red caboose became an American icon. Along with its vanished cousin the steam locomotive, the caboose evokes memories of the golden age of railroading."
"There are conflicting versions of how the caboose got its name and where the word was first used. One popular story points to a Dutch derivation of the word 'kabuis,' meaning a little room or a hut. The English word 'caboose' was first used as a nautical term for a ship's gallery. More certain is the origin of the first railroad caboose, which can be traced to the 1840's. A conductor named Nat Williams on the Auburn & Syracuse, a short line n upstate New York, decided to use the empty wooden boxcar at the end of his train as his 'rolling office.' Williams sat on a wood box and used a barrel as his desk. He stored flags, lanterns, chains, and other work tools in this first caboose. The genesis of the unique cupola located atop the caboose is credited to T.B. Watson, a Chicago & North Western conductor. In 1863, when Watson's regular caboose was reassigned, he used a wooden boxcar at the end of the train for a caboose. The boxcar had a hole in the roof, which prompted Watson to sit on a stack of boxes with his head and shoulders protruding through the hole, giving him an excellent view of his train as it journeyed from Cecar Rapids to Clinton, Iowa. Back at the home terminal, Watson relayed his positive experience to a master mechanic at the railroad's Clinton shops. He suggested that a 'crow's nest' be added to the new waycars the North Western was building there. Thus, C&NW may have been the first railroad to have cabooses with cupolas. The cupola was to give the rear train crew, which consisted of a conductor, brakeman, and flagman, a place to observe their train in motion. They would look for overheated wheel journals (hotboxes), dragging equipment, and shifted freight loads. In addition to the conductor's work area, cabooses often had bunks for sleeping, stoves for cooking, and toilets (initially, the straight-dump kind, then later, chemical toilets). It was also used as a storehouse for tools and supplies, including spare coupler knuckles and pins, chains, jacks and re-railing frogs, fuses, flags, lanterns, and first-aid kits. Despite its charm, the caboose's location at the end of the train made it a dangerous place to work. The inevitable slack, incurred whenever a train started, stopped, or changed speed, rippled back to the caboose, The ensuing jolt could be so severe that it would send crew members falling to the floor, pitching into a wall, stove, or desk corner, or even tumbling from the cupola, any of which could cause serious injury. A toppled lantern could start a fire. Derailments, picked switches, break-aparts, or emergency brake applications could also injure an unknowing crew member. A rear-end collision could be fatal to the occupants of a wooden caboose."
"Following World War I, the all-steel construction of cabooses began. The newly constructed cabooses had steel center-sills and underframes. This advanced caboose design better protected the rear end crew against the train's slack action. By the late 1920's, newly constructed freight cars were taller than most cupolas. The prompted the invention of the bay window caboose. Built with one set of windows on each side, projection out from the side wall to form a viewing alcove, the bay window caboose allowed the conductor and brakeman to view each side of their moving train. This type was cheaper than the cupola, and also helped solve tunnel clearance problems faced by many eastern railroads. Railroaders affectionately called their caboose by many nicknames, including cabin, crummy, buggy, doghouse, waycar, shack, and hack. Most railroads painted their cabooses 'boxcar red' for high visibility. However, after World War II, the 'little red caboose' shoed up in many different colors, typically associated with the paint schemes found on the railroads' new diesel locomotives. Cabooses were expensive to build and maintain, unlike regular freight cars, which earned their keep. Extra switching moves were needed to add or uncouple a caboose at the end of a train, and they required caboose tracks at major yards, as well as Carmen and laborers to work on them and service them. In 1980, the cost of operating a caboose was 92 cents per mile. As railroad technology advanced, the caboose's function became less important. The introduction of remote switches thrown by dispatchers at CTC consoles meant a rear brakeman wasn't needed to close behind a train. Many railroaders believe the final nail in the caboose's coffin was the 'End-of-the-Train' telemetry device. This small box fit over the rear coupler of the last car on the train, and connected to the train's air brake line. It sent a periodic signal to the locomotive indicating the brake pressure at the rear of the train, whether or not the last car of the train is moving, and in which direction. The caboose cost about $480,000 - more than the cost of most freight cars - and weighs about 25 tons. It can be replaced with a box that costs about $4,000 and weighed 35 pounds. One by one throughout the 1980's, individual states repealed age-old laws that required the use of cabooses in train operations. The last state to do so was Virginia, when it relented on July 1, 1988. In the mid 1920's there were approximately 34,000 cabooses operating on U.S. railroads. Today, only a few hundred cabooses remain, used in transfer work, and on yard jobs, work trains, and trains that require backup moves. The colorful caboose that generations once looked for at the end of every freight train is now a thing of the past, replaced by modern technology.'
Outside, is a beautiful caboose. Always something new, right?
We do make a stop at what used to be Primal Brewing. It is now the Railhead Tavern.
A beverage and burger later, we are about to leave when I notice these cuties hiding in the wall. Well, that's it for today. Back on the road we go.
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