Hot off the scanner! I was checking my print collection and found this unattributed photo of SN caboose 1605. It was taken at 40th & Shafter, probably in 1936. There is a processor's date on the back of May 23, 1936, but of course it might have been in a camera undeveloped for some time.
The car was built by the Northern Electric Railway in 1917 at the Mulberry shops as their 623. When the NERY became SNRR, the car was renumbered 605 in 1920, then 1605 in 1921. It kept the same number under SNRY ownership, and was finally retired in 1948.
SNRR 605 set the pattern for two nearly identical cars built by Pacific Car & Foundry in 1920. I don't know if these two cabooses were initially?numbered 606 and 607, or if they were delivered as 1606 and 1607. SNRY 1606 was also retired in 1948, and 1607 in 1954.
Two more similar cabooses were built by the SNRY itself in 1928, numbered 1610 and 1611. Their main difference was a wider cupola that eliminated the side walkways of the earlier cars. Both were retired in 1956. SNRY 1611 was sold to Hal Wilmunder and used as a crew bunk (probably grounded) at his narrow gauge Camino, Cable & Northern project. When that failed, it is said to have become a vacation cabin near Placerville.
