I found two cabooses in Tecumseh, OK, almost by chance—CB&Q 14108 and CRI&P 17870. They are located on a private residence, just north of Highway 9, east of town. I went to have breakfast at the Masonic Lodge there, Tecumseh Lodge #69, and thought I would try to find the two cabooses that are listed nearby. The Lodge there hosts a monthly breakfast fundraiser, so I took the opportunity for a little drive east of Oklahoma City to get some good food and a little bit of Masonic fellowship.

I knew that there were two cabooses listed for Tecumseh, but I had not been able to definitively find them on Google Maps. So after breakfast, I took a detour east of town and tried to see if I could find them. They were actually pretty easy to see once I turned off the highway.

Since they are located on a private residence, I was careful going up the driveway and rang the doorbell before I started walking around and taking pictures. A very nice older lady ansered the door, named Rachel Murdoch. She was very happy to fill me in on the stories of the cabooses and how they came to have them.

She and her husband had obtained the two cabooses with plans to restore them (he restored vintage cars). Unfortunately, time, age and family needs got in the way, and she is now looking for someone to donate the cabooses to. (If anyone is interested, let me know—I have her contact info).

The cars are well sited on their property, but are really starting to show their age. I hate to say it, but they are actually in kinda poor condition (especially CRI&P 17870). Rust and age have started to deteriorate the metal and wood of the cars, and they do need to be restored.

You can see the photos for both cars at CRI&P 17870 and CB&Q 14108.

Regardless, I was very happy to meet Rachel, hear her stories and make a new friend. I was also happy to locate these two cabooses, and mark some “unconfirmed” cabooses off the list and mark them “visited.”

Marc

As I was working through the notes about each of the cabooses we have listed, I noticed that CB&Q 13829 was reported to be located just north of our house. So I drove over to take a look and see if I could confirm this car was still there. I found that the caboose was indeed at the reported location, but is definitely on private property. I was able to see the caboose from Spring Creek Baptist Church on MacArthur Boulevard, which is on the other side of a creek from the residence.

The car itself looks to be something of a pool house. It does not have any trucks or wheels, and is just a body. I was not able to see any more, and will have to contact the owners to get any better photos (with permission) and any history of the caboose.

Marc

Site Moved to New Host

We moved the oklahomacabooses.us site from a self-hosted site on Bluehost.com to Ghost, and now to Write.as. Why? Long story short, money.

Self-hosting has just gotten so expensive, and this is especially true of a site that never intends to make any money. I moved the site to Ghost, but they raised their costs from $108/year to $180/year, with no notice.

At that point, I started looking for another place to call home. I found Write.as as a possible place to host my own personal blog, and its minimal approach really appealed to me. The cost was reasonable, too—$72/year, with up to 3 blogs. I ended up moving all 4 of my blogs to Write.as, with a total cost of $84/year. That means this one site now costs me only $21/year. That is better than the high costs elsewhere.

As I moved the site to the new platform, I took the time to flesh out the pages for each of the cabooses we have information on as well as update them with our latest info. I folded in information we had gathered from the Railfan website, the book Captive Cabeese in America as well as information we have personally gathered through the state. My biggest takeaway while doing this is that there is still a lot of data to track down and update…

Future Plans

Which leads to our future plans. Now that I am retired, we plan to do a lot more to track these cabooses down and get their information out there. Traci is still working, and I am really involved with my Mason lodge, but we can still work to make calls, send emails—and make some trips.

And that is one of the most fun parts of this journey—traveling around the state of Oklahoma. There is so much to see and to experience that we can spend years just driving around. As we do, we will be writing here about what we see and learn.

So stay tuned! There will definitely be more to come in what is left of 2025 and absolutely in 2026!

Marc

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Stone Bluff, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Unknown. Construction: Unknown. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (CRI&P). Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Stone Bluff, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Unknown. Construction: Unknown. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (CRI&P). Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Stone Bluff, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Unknown. Construction: Unknown. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific (CRI&P). Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Shawnee, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Bay Window. Construction: Steel. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF). Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Shattuck, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Cupola. Construction: Wood. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Unknown. Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Sand Springs, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Wide Vision. Construction: Steel. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Steel. Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.

We cannot find this caboose on Google Maps. We have not visited this caboose yet.

Info:

Location: Sand Springs, OK. Status: #missing. Address: Unknown. Coordinates: Unknown. Map: Cannot find on Google Maps. Type: Cupola. Construction: Wood. Built: Unknown. Retired: Unknown. Railroad: Burlington Northern (BN). Access: Unknown. Owner: Unknown. Condition: Unknown. Visited: Not yet.

Sources:

Captive Cabeese in America. Marc and Traci Tabyanan.