Military Locos?

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

About a decade ago I visited the Cape Fear Railways and noticed the
cabooses were gone.  An employee explained they'd been sold off after they
could no longer use them for train escort duty.

According to the employee, one day a team of MPs was escorting a trainload
of Army equipment and, as the train paused in nearby Fayetteville, hopped
off to load up on goodies from a nearby liquor store.  Later, as the train
was rolling alongside a road on its way to Hamlet, NC, a state trooper
spotted one of the MPs on the roof of the caboose as he was "surfing,"
wearing shorts and nothing else.  The trooper radioed ahead to the CSX
railway police in Hamlet, where the sauced MPs were taken off the train
and returned to the post.  (That was not a good day to be in their boots.)
  After that incident, CSX said there would be no more cabooses with MPs
from Fort Bragg.

Tim Moriarty
========================
For example, at Ft Bragg NC the Cape Fear RR operated three locomotives
moving trains of equipment going to deployments and exercises, as well as
rail shipments of jet fuel for Pope AFB and various supplies. They had two
"Carolina Blue" cabooses to provide accomodations for guard detachments
traveling with the equipment trains, as CSX didn't have much in the way of
such to provide by the 80s and 90s when I was watching them.