Editing Caboose (section)

===Decline===
{{Main|End-of-train device|Defect detector}}
[[File:FRED cropped.jpg|thumb|An [[end-of-train device]] on a train in 2005]]

Until the 1980s,<ref name=wvgbtcbs/> laws in the United States and Canada required all freight trains to have a caboose and a full crew for safety. Technology eventually advanced to a point where the railroads, in an effort to save money by reducing crew members, stated that cabooses were unnecessary.

New diesel locomotives had large cabs that could house entire crews. Distant dispatchers controlled switches, eliminating the need to manually throw switches after trains had passed. Improved signaling eliminated the need to protect the rear of a stopped train.<ref name=Barry>{{cite book|last=Barry|first=Steve|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=woJyATGsf6kC&pg=PA183|chapter=Chapter 14: Cabooses|title=Railroad Rolling Stock|page=183|lccn=2008023040|isbn=9780760332603|oclc=209628259|year=2008|location=Minneapolis, Minnesota|publisher=[[The Quarto Group#Imprints|Voyageur Press]]}}</ref> Bearings were improved and [[defect detector|lineside detectors]] were used to detect hot boxes, which themselves were becoming rarer with more and more freight cars gaining roller bearings. Better-designed cars avoided problems with the loads which helped as well. The railroads also claimed a caboose was a dangerous place, as slack run-ins could hurl the crew from their places and even dislodge weighty equipment.

Railroads proposed the [[end-of-train device]] (EOT or ETD), commonly called a FRED (flashing rear-end device), as an alternative.<ref name=Barry/> An ETD could be attached to the rear of the train to detect the train's air brake pressure and report any problems to the locomotive by [[telemetry]].<ref name=Barry/> The ETD also detects movement of the train upon start-up and radios this information to the engineers so they know all of the slack is out of the couplings and additional power could be applied. The machines also have blinking red lights to warn following trains that a train is ahead. With the introduction of the ETD, the conductor moved up to the front of the train with the engineer.

A 1982 Presidential Emergency Board convened under the Railway Labor Act directed United States railroads to begin eliminating caboose cars where possible to do so.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Chesapeake Railway Association|url = http://www.chessierail.org/rfp923.html|website = www.chessierail.org|access-date = 2015-08-31}}</ref> A legal exception was the state of Virginia, which had a 1911 law mandating cabooses on the ends of trains, until the law's final repeal in 1988. With this exception aside, year by year, cabooses started to fade away.<ref>{{Cite news|title = End of the Line : U.S. Railroads Phasing Out Cabooses|url = https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-02-25-fi-45257-story.html|newspaper = Los Angeles Times|date = 1988-02-25|access-date = 2015-08-31|issn = 0458-3035|language = en|first = JOHN|last = LANCASTER}}</ref> Very few cabooses remain in operation today, though they are still used for some local trains where it is convenient to have a brakeman at the end of the train to operate switches, on long reverse movements, and are also used on trains carrying hazardous materials.

[[CSX Transportation]] is one of the few Class 1 railroads that still maintains a fleet of modified cabooses for regular use. Employed as "shoving platforms" at the rear of local freight trains which must perform long reverse moves or heavy switching, these are generally rebuilt bay-window cabooses with their cabin doors welded shut (leaving their crews to work from the rear platform). [[BNSF]] also maintains a fleet of former wide-vision cabooses for a similar purpose, and in 2013 began repainting some of them in heritage paint schemes of BNSF's predecessor railroads.