A Rail Relic Reborn: How The Katy Trail Caboose Got a New Lease on Life

Here’s something that’s definitely not bringing up the rear.

The Katy Trail Caboose, a wonderful piece of history, is one of the 2021 Preservation Dallas Achievement Award winners. It was submitted by The Friends of the Katy Trail because it’s not only a deserving structure, it’s also a fine example of dedication to preservation and a real rescue tale.

The Gateway to Texas

Buddy Cramer, a managing partner of the immensely popular Katy Trail Ice House, and Ben Ralston, a junior general partner, have always wanted to own a caboose. Their restaurant is right next to the Katy Trail. Many people don’t realize that trail was a working railroad, The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railway, for decades. It began in Dallas in 1886 and was one of the first major railroads to enter Texas. It became known as The Gateway to Texas.

Buddy and Ben share a love for trains and history. They had often talked about how cool it would be to have a historical piece outside, and a caboose was perfect. Little did they know what an adventure awaited.

“The reason we wanted to get a caboose is people are using the hike and bike trail every day, and I bet you less than 1 in 20 realize there used to be a railroad running there for 120 years,” Buddy said. “You think about the history of the line.  For a hundred years, there were passenger cars. Then it was purely a freight line. The Katy Trail Ice House was originally a metal shop where they worked on railroad cars. We have found all kinds of track, railroad spikes, even an old coal storage area.”

Researching a Railway

Buddy and Ben took field trips whenever they could to investigate leads and compile research.

“We went to the central library, and I think we bought digital copies of most of the good photographs they had on file of MKT trains and cars that were in the Dallas area from the 1930s to the 1960s,” Ben said. Buddy and I had gone to the MKT depot in Waxahachie and the Farmers Branch Railroad Depot. Both sites have cabooses on display, and it gave us an idea of how to do the correct rail bed.”

No detail escaped them. They researched paint colors, talked about what they would do to the interior, how it would be finished out, and what purpose it would serve. All they needed was an actual caboose.

A Promising Lead

In 2015, Ben got a lead, so he and Buddy went to scout a railroad museum in Denison, Texas. Denison was the most important depot in Texas at one time as it was the first stop in the state once you got through the territory we now know as Oklahoma. There were three cabooses at the depot. One was owned by an individual and in a total state of disrepair. It was built in 1966 and one of the last cabooses manufactured.

“So, we bought the thing for what we thought was a good price and had no idea how to get it to Dallas,” Buddy said. “We hired Lemmons Transportation, who have experience in this sort of move. They used three flatbed trailers so that it would fit under bridges on the way home.”

The Real Adventure

That turned out to be the easiest part of what became a multi-year adventure. Before they even got the caboose to Dallas, however, they had to build a track to set it on. Being sticklers for historical accuracy, Buddy and Ben started scouting again. This time they didn’t have to travel far. It turns out one of the neighbor’s had a stack of original MKT rails in the backyard. Once the railbed was built, a crane lifted it into place.

“The hardest part of the restoration was gutting the interior,” Buddy said. “It had two beds, a wood-burning stove, and a bathroom. There was a narrow hallway with a couple of seats above the bathroom and a generator. We had to cut through so much steel. Once it was a clean slate, Bryan Varner started doing the interior, and the exterior was painted.”

“The MKT had changed their color scheme in the early 1970s,” Ben said.  “So,  the caboose we bought was faded pea green and yellow. We went back to the original red and white colors.”

Bryan has worked with Buddy for years, so the two have a great collaborative rapport and that resulted in a brilliant rebirth for this caboose. Mahogany floors were installed, old-growth yellow pine created the wainscotting, and all the windows were redone.

“We made it into a meeting space,” Buddy said. “We bought a beautiful Oriental rug, Bryan build a big conference table, and we added a vintage chandelier from Uncommon Lighting. It’s essentially a shrine to the MKT railway.”

“To discover and then own an old caboose and re-home it was a full-circle experience,” Ben said. “We want people to know there was a rail line running through the heart of Dallas and to remind them of this part of Dallas history.”