Some of you may remember this old rusty caboose I posted about back in May. They were getting ready to put it on display at the Catlettsburg train depot.

I found a picture of it in it's original location online. It had been abandoned on some property owned by Marathon Petroleum for over two decades!

Nasty!

Took these about two months ago. It was cleaning up pretty well!

They started painting her last week. Decided on red rather than the traditional C&O blue. Near the end of the caboose era, C&O had repainted most cabooses still in service red, but this one never made it back to the carshops in Wurtland, Ky for repaint before cabooses were phased out entirely.

Stopped by the bank on the way home yesterday and saw they have her almost finished. Still a lot of little detail work to be done, but it's looking pretty good.

You've came a long way, baby!

They say they're going to use it as a small museum for local historical artifacts, so they installed a heat pump for climate control.

Looks right at home down there at the end of the depot's apron!

Great job, guys.

The C&O was a large part of my life in my younger days. My grandfather worked as a carpenter for the C&O all his life, as did my dad for quite awhile in the late 1940's and 50's.

If you're wondering why the railroad needed carpenters, you're probably pretty young. Back in the 'old days' most freight was carried on the railroads in wooden gondolas and boxcars, and C&O's were built right here at the Wurtland carshops. The kind the hobo's used to ride the rails on back in the dust bowl days. You don't see many of them any more, most railcars are made with steel and aluminium these days.

The C&O is responsible for my family even being here in Northeastern Kentucky. Originally from Richmond Va, when the Great Depression hit, the C&O closed it's Richmond carshop and told my grandfather if he wanted to continue working for them he had a job waiting for him at the Wurtland, Ky carshop, part of the Russell Railyard, at that time the largest independently owned railyard in the world. So he packed up the family and moved west. Dad's two older brothers moved back to Richmond later, but dad and his younger sister stayed here with Grampa Ferguson. I'm glad he did. I've enjoyed living here in Ky, with the Ohio River on one side of me and the railroad tracks on the other. It's home to me. Always has been and always will be.

And I can't even imagine living life and not being a University of Kentucky Wildcat fan!