The end of the line came suddenly Monday for caboose No. 04990.
At 1:39 a.m., a passing police officer called the Boulder Fire Department, saying the 112-year- old red caboose – which has been on display in Boulder’s Central Park for more than three decades – was aflame. By the time firefighters could douse the fire, the inside was gutted, the roof was destroyed and the exterior siding was charred.
The caboose was cooked.
“This represents a tragic loss of one of the city’s prized historic and cultural assets,” said Jan Geden, Boulder’s parks and recreation director.
Fire investigators have not determined what caused the blaze.
The city bought caboose No. 04990 in 1975 to replace a caboose that unidentified vandals leveled with a stick of dynamite in 1958. The caboose combined with a locomotive and a passenger car in a display paying tribute to Boulder County’s history, said Jason Midyette, a founder of the Boulder County Railway Historical Society.
Over the years, the society has restored the caboose, bit by bit.
“We’ve spent 10 years putting it back together, and now we’re basically back at square one,” Midyette said.
But Midyette thinks the caboose – which started life in 1895 as a boxcar, was converted to a caboose, then was used as a ranch shed – may have one more rebirth left in it.
“It’s going to be a big project,” Midyette said, “but it’s not beyond hope.”
