The Garbely Publishing Company, an independent railroad history publisher, has acquired Canadian National “van” caboose 79462 from the Danbury Railroad Museum in Danbury, Conn. It will eventually be moved to the Port Jervis Railroad Museum in Port Jervis, N.Y.

The van is now being leased to TOYX for use as a crew car on the organization’s Operation Toy Train, and will also serve as a year-round display at the museum.

Operation Toy Train runs a series of annual toy collection trains across the United States during the holiday season for the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and other local organizations.

Van 79462 entered service in June 1971 and was one of 548 vans built by Canadian National’s Pointe St. Charles Shops between 1970 and 1977. It was used on freight trains across Canada. These vans reused parts from old 40-foot boxcars that CN rostered, originally built in the late 1930s. In Canada, cabooses were referred to as “vans.”

After vans were phased out on Canadian railroads in the early 1990s, van 79462 was sold to private owners in 1994 who intended to make it part of a restaurant. In 1996, it was moved to the Danbury Railroad Museum for temporary storage, and ownership would be transferred to the museum by 2003.

— Nick Stewart