Catawissa Railroad Company

 

Book Your Caboose reservation early,  For 2015
 CLICK HERE FOR
Reservations Form 

 

 

 

Keeping local railroad history alive in any small town is very expensive, hard work & Fun

 

 

This year we will be repainting a couple of our cabooses.
 



We are just minutes from Knoebel's Amusement in Elysburg.
Free admission, free parking, free picnicking and free entertainment.
The Pioneer Tunnel Mine tour is within 35 minutes.
 

 

Make your reservation early for the 2015 (April to October).
Walter Gosciminski  (Owner)
Any Questions you can Email  at

Email

Where The Heck Is Catawissa
"Preserving Our Local Railroad Heritage Since 1979"

Bring your camera & children they will love it. all the cabooses are displayed outside for great picture taking.

No admission charge (FREE TO THE PUBLIC TO VISIT).

 We have 14 cabooses that has been completely restored and painted in authentic company colors

You can look back on the days when cabooses were common on railroads across North America.

In the early days of railroading, each crew was assigned its own caboose, which served as home for days at a time.
They could watch the cars ahead, sleep, cook and eat their meals. It was a place where the conductor and rear brakeman would do their paperwork.

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Keeping local railroad history alive in any small town is very expensive, hard work & Fun

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2000 Photo

Last year I had a bird's eye view, when I was finishing the upper deck on the station, I saw three locomotives pulling the mile-long Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus train, with four circus cars hauling animals.
This line to Sunbury, Penn., (Wilkes-Barre to Sunbury) was an old Pennsy line and came to the D&H on April 1, 1976. The Delaware and Hudson is presently owned by Canadian Pacific Railway.

Opening night of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus at the Wachovia Arena was on Wednesday, June 1, 2005

 


 

Update: We built 4 enclosed picnic shelters 12X16 next to each caboose and one large 10X20.

Great    animationcar.GIF (2908 bytes)   Vacation
Caboose Lodging In  Pennsylvania
Retreat from the noise, the concerns, the hustle and bustle of the city.

My younger days

Our 14 Railroad Cabooses are next to the scenic Susquehanna River
 


 

 

 

If you like the outdoors you will love our location here at the Catawissa Railway
 The perfect get-away with family and friends, 8 cabooses available.

 

"Your Destination for Family Fun"
Treat yourself to a fresh, fun weekend away.
Our Season is April to October / Caboose Rental
Kids Love Trains!
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UPDATE            June 07, 2003
 We just Finished 8 of our 14 cabooses, with TV/VCR No Cable/, Free movies, electricity, running water,  bathrooms and  3 with showers. 
Our Private His & Her Bathrooms includes two large 42"x42" neo-angle shower
Also our Penn Central caboose has a large neo-angle shower. 
Note: Remember to bring your own bath towels, shampoo and soap

On our  Reservations Form  page you can see photos of each caboose inside and outside

 
Make your reservations early. Each year our rentals double. 
Family & friends are returning, renting up to eight cabooses a day!
Advance reservations are highly recommended particularly during the summer. Why not make yours today?


PLAN AHEAD. If you're considering a Friday or Saturday stay in the next week or so, we MIGHT still have something available, but keep in mind that we often fill up Friday and Saturday night reservations as much as six weeks in advance. Weekday nights are usually a little easier to get on shorter notice. But if you want to get a specific room on a specific night, try to plan as far ahead as you possibly can, just to be sure. 

(Closed during the winter months)

Take a look at what our guests have to say about staying at our caboose lodge

Reservations Form 

CLICK HERE FOR  Reservations Form

Great Nearby Places to Visit

If you like the outdoors, camping, fishing, biking, etc.
  We are just minutes from Knoebel's Amusement in Elysburg. Old Fashioned Family Fun. Knoebels Amusement Resort is a great place for families. Admission to the park is free. Also available are free picnic facilities, offers free parking. The park has a swimming pool and waterslide. Called the Crystal Pool, it's open Memorial Day through Labor Day. Knoebel’s is a wonderful park with something for everyone. They also have a great assortment of coasters and other grown up rides. 50 + rides. Total Distance: 7.71 miles
   You may also want to visit. The Bloomsburg Fair, the largest in the state, late September. Total Distance: 5.00 miles
   Also the only national park solely dedicated to railroad history, Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton. It is a museum dedicated to the history of trains. Total Distance: 69.25 miles

Bird's Eye View of The Cabooses
You can even see driving directions with real images
 

 

If Your A Caboose Owner & Like To Send Me
Some information on what it took to move it or restoring, you can Email  at       And I'll post it here. Also send a photo link, if you have one?

 

Dear Walter,
         It was a pleasure viewing your Web page. I can hardly believe what you have done, as we own one caboose and know the work it takes to restore one. As you can see ours is no longer on the trucks (that might change), and we use it for our summer cottage. You don't have to tell me the trouble moving one of these, as we have our own stories to tell, thank God we only moved it once. We have owned it since 1980 but only got serious about restoring it 4 years ago. It is now located 5 miles south of Gimli Manitoba Canada beside Lake Winnipeg. As you can see we spent some time on it, but it was fun, and now we have many people wanting to look at it. Kind of like owning your own little museum. It's to bad it has become a bygone era. Our's was originally a boxcar built in 1910 for the Grand Trunk Railway and rebuilt into a Caboose for Canadian National Railway's in Dec. of 1940. Once again I really enjoyed your web site ( I have bookmarked it.). Hope you like our Pic's.


Sincerly Yours,

Ray and Brenda Hill

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Walt,

Here is a picture of my caboose.  The whole process started in August when the newest  addition of trains magazine came in.  It had an add for a CE1 caboose that wasn't there the day before.  I walked from my mail slot at my office directly to the phone and called.  To my amazement the man was home and we talked for about thirty minutes.  He sent me an email the next day and I offered him full price the same day.  It took three months to actually find someone that would inspect the brakes on the caboose,  they had to do a pressure test and then jack up the caboose and manually roll the trucks to inspect the bearings for smooth operation, (this cost about $800.  This was after $3600 to crane and truck the caboose to the live rail from the house where it was displayed near Chicago.  $2200 more to transport it via BNSFto Washington State(it was really cool watching it's progress on BNSF's web site across the northern route of BNSF toward Washington State), and then another $1800 for crane service in Washington.  I still haven't paid the trucking company for the final move, it will be about $800.  Now it is sitting in my friends rock quarry waiting for the ground to dry out next summer for the final move.  Oh yea the track was about $1800 and the cost of trucking two panel sections to the site was another $800.  It was worth every penny.  I got a really good deal on the caboose otherwise I wouldn't have been able to afford it.  Some of the SF cabooses that I have seen have gone for $16.000. 

Anyway thanks for the continued interest.  I read your web page with interest so the above wasn't such a sticker shock when all of the bills started rolling in.

Regards,

Len Hall

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Hello Walt,

I think that I have almost all of the bills in. 

You can use the photo and the bills in your web site.  I still have to move it from it's present site to the track about another 1.5 miles this summer when the last 2 tenths of a mile of dirt road dries out.

Price of Caboose                         6,000

Truck and crane Chicago              3,600

BNSF inspection of brakes               820

BNSF transport of caboose           2,150

Two 33' RR track panels               2,340

Transport panels to site                   800

Crane @ delivery site                    1,490

Low boy truck @ delivery site           819

8 hours cat work and gravel           3,014

                                                           21,033

Lots and lots of $$$$$  for phone calls to coordinate all of the above.  Too many to count

It has been worth every penny

New paint and restoration????????????

I would like it to look as original as possible on the outside but I'm not sure at this point how to make identical stencils and match the paint exactly.  Any suggestions?

Thanks,                                            

Hi Walt,

I saw your item on E-bay.  Living in N.  Calif 40 miles from the Oregon border, I am too far to come visit your project.  But I am writing to tell you how much I am enjoying your web page.  I bought an old Santa Fe caboose
two years ago.  It came into Yreka, CA from Kansas City, and I stored it at the Blue Goose office.  The Blue Goose is a six mile short line that connects to the old Southern Pacific line a Montague.  The business manager let me store it there for free for a year and also gave me 18 ties and two lengths of rail for me to set up on some mountain property I have in Scott Valley, 25 miles away.  I set up my rail bed, and had to hire a D8 Cat to widen the road to the site.  I hired a local lowboy service and got a portable crane from Medford, Or to come down for the move.  The crane loaded the unit  on the lowboy and the trucks on a flat bed, and then followed us to the site to reverse the operation.  After reading Mr. Halls experiences I thought you might be interested in my costs todate.

Caboose 8000
Shipping free
D8 Cat work 1800
crane service 1300
trucking 1500
-----------------------------
total 12600

I am working on the restoration now.  We are doing the work ourselves,  so it is more elbow grease than money.  Have removed the old diesel stove and fuel storage, cut out unneeded supports , replaced oil soaked and dry rotted flooring, pressure washed the interior to remove peeling paint, etc. I am now ready to cut in some larger windows,   paint the interior, and put down linoleum.  Such fun!  I hope to be ready for deer season camping out in Oct.

I have your site book marked and plan to check in on it often.  I really like the book list.  I have four grand kids all under five, so the book list will give me some realy nice gift options.  As I did this project in a
vacuum it is great to see what others have been doing.

Thanks a bunch,

Abner Weed
11120 Apache Rd.
Montague, Ca 96064
   

     Hi, just happened upon your web site from browsing ebay "caboose".  If you get a chance, look at our web site and click on the goose to see our cattle for sale page. At the bottom of the list of cattle is  a listing for "Starshire Farm". Click on that and see our caboose. We bought it at a Santa Fe auction. It cost us around $10,000 by the time we had it
transported to our farm.  I couldn't find the spot you mentioned to see what it cost you to have yours moved.  My husband thinks ours is 30 ton, not sure. It is metal, still all original inside. We have been going to
remodel it into a guest house, but haven't gotten around to it yet.



Geneva Armstrong
Starshire Farm
Berryton, KS

http://www.cjnetworks.com/~highland
 

animationtrain.GIF (6295 bytes)Home

Our Caboose Information
and Rates
 Lots of inside Photos

Take a visual tour of the real thing!
 Click Here for index

We are near Bloomsburg, Danville, Berwick, Harrisburg, Sunbury, Williamsport, Reading, Milton, Lewisburg. Also we are close to Knoebel's Park one of the best Family entertainment around. Knoebels coaster, The Phoenix One of the Top 10 Coasters in the World! Train Ride.  Knoebel's Amusement Park in Elysburg, Pennsylvania. This exciting family destination is one of the largest free-admission parks in the country. + Bloomsburg Fair, held annually in September/October, Pennsylvania's biggest fair.

2005 
Park group again names Knoebels top family spot

ELYSBURG — Knoebels Amusement Park and Resort was voted "Best Park for Families" by members of the National Amusement Park Historical Association (NAPHA).

Knoebels beat out Walt Disney World and other parks from across the country for the honor, according to a NAPHA press release.

The local park has been voted the top spot for families since 1999.

In other categories:

 The Phoenix roller coaster was voted "Favorite Wooden Coaster" by group members for the second time in three years.

 Knoebels tied for "Favorite Traditional Park" with Kennywood, which is located near Pittsburgh.

 The park tied for second in the "Most Beautiful Park" category; a park in the Netherlands was also voted second. The top choice was Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va.

NAPHA is the country's largest amusement park enthusiast organization. The results were from its 19th annual Amusement Parks and Attractions survey.


 

Reservations Form 
For your convenience, we have created this simple Email form

We are only a stone throw away from Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pa & The Bloomsburg Fair

Any Questions you can Email  at

Click Here

Information on our rentals: Lots of Photos
  Bird's Eye View of The Cabooses
bullet Reservations Form  For your convenience, we have created this simple Email form + inside photos of each caboose
bullet Inside Caboose Photos  Here's a sneak peek of the inside of the caboose ...
bullet New for 2004  Our family camping picnic area
bullet Take a look at what our guests have to say about staying at our caboose lodge
bullet Caboose Rates    .Rate $95 to $160.00 a day  + Tax
bullet Our New Caboose / 1944 New York Central # 20137 The Ultimate Caboose We supply Everything 
bullet Our Office + Map  Driving directions
bullet Caboose List    14 cabooses on display
bullet Our New Addition Davenport Steam Engine
bullet Have breakfast, lunch or dinner in our 1910 Train Station
bullet Visitors Guide   List Our Area Attractions
bullet Gift Certificate Form  For your convenience, we have created this simple Email form 

UPDATE            June 07, 2003
 6 of our 14 cabooses have bathrooms, 5 with showers

 

 



Award Winning Site!

June 21, 1999PA Destination of the Day

 

 

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Great Railroad Caboose Video 
Price 

TOTAL ONLY $60.00 includes shipping
(2 Hours)

 

"WHAT OUR GUESTS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT STAYING IN OUR CABOOSE"

We have been lucky enough to have GREAT guests over the years. Here is a collection of some of their thoughts. It includes input from honeymooners, families and singles, railroad lovers, train watchers, fishermen and naturalists. They express what it's like better than we ever could.

Take a look at what our guests have to say about staying at our caboose lodge