What is "caboose"

Galley \Gal"ley\, n.; pl. Galleys. [OE. gale, galeie (cf. OF. galie, gal['e]e, LL. galea, LGr. ?; of unknown origin.]

1. (Naut.) A vessel propelled by oars, whether having masts and sails or not; as:

   1. A large vessel for war and national purposes; -- common in the Middle Ages, and down to the 17th century.

   2. A name given by analogy to the Greek, Roman, and other ancient vessels propelled by oars.

   3. A light, open boat used on the Thames by customhouse officers, press gangs, and also for pleasure.

   4. One of the small boats carried by a man-of-war.

      Note: The typical galley of the Mediterranean was from one hundred to two hundred feet long, often having twenty oars on each side. It had two or three masts rigged with lateen sails, carried guns at prow and stern, and a complement of one thousand to twelve hundred men, and was very efficient in mediaeval warfare. Galleons, galliots, galleasses, half galleys, and quarter galleys were all modifications of this type.

2. The cookroom or kitchen and cooking apparatus of a vessel; -- sometimes on merchant vessels called the caboose.

3. (Chem.) An oblong oven or muffle with a battery of retorts; a gallery furnace.

4. [F. gal['e]e; the same word as E. galley a vessel.] (Print.)

   1. An oblong tray of wood or brass, with upright sides, for holding type which has been set, or is to be made up, etc.

   2. A proof sheet taken from type while on a galley; a galley proof.

      Galley slave, a person condemned, often as a punishment for crime, to work at the oar on board a galley. ``To toil like a galley slave.''
      --Macaulay.

      Galley slice (Print.), a sliding false bottom to a large galley.
      --Knight.

1747, "ship's cookhouse," from Middle Dutch kambuis "ship's galley," from Low German kabhuse "wooden cabin on ship's deck;" probably a compound whose elements correspond to English cabin and house (n.). Railroading sense is by 1859.

n. 1 (context obsolete nautical English) A small galley or cookhouse on the deck of a small vessel. 2 (context US rail transport English) The last car on a freight train, having cooking and sleeping facilities for the crew; a guard’s van. 3 (context slang baby-talk or euphemistic English) buttocks 4 (context slang sports English) The person or team in last place.

1. n: the area for food preparation on a ship [syn: galley, ship's galley, cookhouse]

2. a car on a freight train for use of the train crew; usually the last car on the train [syn: cabin car]

A caboose is a manned North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were long required for switching and shunting, and to keep a lookout for load shifting, damage to equipment and cargo, and overheating axles.

Originally flatcars fitted with cabins or modified box cars, they later became purpose built with projections above or to the sides of the car to allow crew to observe the train from shelter. The caboose also served as the conductor's office, and on long routes included accommodation and cooking facilities.

A similar railroad car design, the brake van, was used on British and Commonwealth railways. These provided the additional function of serving as a supplemental braking systems for trains not fitted with a continuous braking system, and keeping chain couplings taut.

Cabooses were used on every freight train until the 1980s, when safety laws requiring the presence of cabooses and full crews were relaxed. Developments in monitoring and safety technology such as lineside defect detectors and End of Train Device resulted in crew reductions and the phasing out of caboose cars. Nowadays, they are generally only used on rail maintenance or hazardous materials trains, or on heritage and tourist railroads.

A caboose is a manned railroad car at the end of a freight train in North America.

Caboose may also refer to:

• Caboose (ship's galley), a ship's kitchen above deck
• Caboose (Red vs. Blue), a character in the video series Red vs. Blue
• Caboose (film), a 1996 Canadian film directed by Richard Roy
• "Caboose", a song by Sugar Ray from Lemonade and Brownies
• Mrs. Crabbople's Caboose a children's television series, with set design, and puppetry by Wayne White (artist), shortly before working on Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Caboose (also camboose, coboose, cubboos derived from the Dutch kombuis) is a term used for a small ship's kitchen, i.e. galley, located on an open deck. At one time a caboose related to a smaller kitchen aboard a merchantman, while aboard a warship it was called a galley.

William Falconer's 1780 A Universal Dictionary of the Marine describes a caboose thus: "a sort of box or house to cover the chimney of some merchant-ships. It somewhat resembles a sentry-box, and generally stands against the barricade on the fore part of the quarter-deck". Sometimes the caboose was portable.

Prior to the introduction of the caboose the furnaces for cooking were, aboard three-deckers, placed on the middle deck, and aboard two-decked ships in the forecastle.

In Canada a caboose was formerly used to describe a galley on a timber raft.

The term was sometimes also applied to the cast-iron stove used for cooking on deck or in galleys during the early 19th century, as well as an outdoor oven or fireplace.