"When Katy caboose rambled down the train tracks,

The engines were steamers with puffing smoke stacks.

She was a caboose who disliked being last

With an endless black cloud of smoke rolling past

'It's not only smoky,' the caboose would complain,

'There's the jerks and the jolts of this noisy freight train'.

Often katy would wish that someday she could be

Something quiet and simple like a lovely elm tree".

"A drawing of an unhappy caboose rattling along under a cloud of train smoke was stuck on my studio wall for fifteen years before she became 'Katy' in the story 'The Caboose that got Loose'". (Above)

Steam trains were one of my father's favorite things and he included them in several of his stories. Another train story is Smokey and trains are featured prominently in Pamela Camel and Farewell to Shady Glade.

Workers on track in railroad yard.

             Color sketch for an oil painting.