Caboose

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.

Fen

A fen is one of the main types of wetland, the others being grassy marshes, forested swamps, and peaty bogs. Along with bogs, fens are a kind of mire. Fens are usually fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. They are characterised by their water chemistry, which is pH neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients. They are usually dominated by grasses and sedges, and typically have brown mosses in general including Scorpidium or Drepanocladus. Fens frequently have a high diversity of other plant species including carnivorous plants such as Pinguicula. They may also occur along large lakes and rivers where seasonal changes in water level maintain wet soils with few woody plants. The distribution of individual species of fen plants is often closely connected to water regimes and nutrient concentrations.

Fens have a characteristic set of plant species, which sometimes provide the best indicators of environmental conditions. For example, fen indicator species in New York State include Carex flava, Cladium mariscoides, Potentilla fruticosa, Pogonia ophioglossoides and Parnassia glauca.

Car (surname)

Car is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Car (Greek mythology)

Car or Kar (Greek: Κάρ) is a name in Greek mythology that refers to two characters who may or may not be one and the same.

The name "Car" is unrelated to the English word "car" (vehicle).

Car of Megara

According to Pausanias, Car was the king of Megara and the son of Phoroneus (and Cerdo). His tomb was located on the road from Megara to Corinth. The acropolis at Megara derived its name Caria from him.

Car of the Carians

Herodotus mentions a (probably) different Car, brother of Lydus and Mysus; the three brothers were believed to have been the ancestral heroes and eponyms of the Carians, the Lydians and the Mysians respectively. This Car was credited by Pliny the Elder with inventing the auspicia.

Car was also said to have founded the city Alabanda, which he named after Alabandus, his son by Callirhoe (the daughter of the river god Maeander). In turn, Alabandus's name is said to have been chosen in commemoration of his Car's victory in a horse fight— according to the scholar Stephanus of Byzantium, "Alabandos" was the Carian word for "winner in a horse fight". Another son of Car, Idrieus, had the city Idrias named after himself.

Cabin

Cabin may refer to:

Places

Transportation

Other uses

See also