Transportation Museum Gets New Piece: 1952 Wabash Caboose

Railroad fans, you're getting another treat at Kirkwood's Museum of Transportation on Tuesday.

If everything goes as planned, the museum, working with the Missouri Department of Transportation and Select Transport Inc. of St. Louis, will be loading up a 1952, fully-restored Wabash Railroad red caboose onto two flat-bed trucks on Monday.

The caboose, a fixture for years in the Olivette community, will be moved to the Museum of Transportation at 3015 Barrett Station Road, some 20 miles to the west and the south.

The move is expected to start on Tuesday at 9 a.m., to avoid a Missouri Department of Transportation fine for making this kind of move after 3:30 p.m.

The caboose, signals and small portion of track have been at the home of Vance Lischer Jr., 535 Dielman Road in Olivette, almost 20 years.

The original estimate to get the caboose out of there was in excess of $70,000. Eventually, the museum took over negotiations; the agreed upon figure is closer to $22,000. An interested party donated $10,000 to move the vehicle and the museum is paying the balance.

Permits were taken out in both Olivette and St. Louis County. Select transport has arranged for two cranes to do the lifting and two flat-bed trucks to do the moving. A team of signal men will clear roadways. The caboose will go north on Dielman and west on Olive. From there, the route will be south on I-270 to Barrett Station Road.

MoDOT has let permits to clear all traffic lights, road wires, etc.

Olivette's police will supervise traffic until it passes beyond city limits.

The final resting place will be a siding near a new visitors' entrance to the museum. Lischer is a retired structural engineer who has followed railroading and bridge construction his entire adult life.

Olivette will lose its only true museum piece after taking up residence on Dielman Road for some 20 years.