This photo from the 1980s captures a rare moment in railroad history.
Parks Hall, a retired Chattanooga radio engineer, said he snapped this image facing South on the Wilcox Bridge near Aminicola Highway in early 1989. It shows train cabooses being hauled away for scrap or repurposing.
Originally designed as observational cars and crew accommodations, changes in train safety laws in the 1980s led to the eventual demise of the caboose car on most trains.
Hall, a railroad enthusiast who traveled the country by rail as a child, happened upon this scene one day at the DeButts Rail Yard here and immediately understood the significance of what he was witnessing.
“I always carried a camera with me,” Hall said this week in a telephone interview from his home in Soddy-Daisy. “I found a place to park on the other side of the bridge and walked over and took that picture. I think it was probably Norfolk Southern railroad taking their cabooses to scrap or sell.”