waycar

plural waycars

1. A crewed railroad car attached to the end of a freight train, serving as the conductor’s office, lookout (often via a cupola), and living quarters—equivalent to a caboose. Used chiefly in North America, historically.

   The waycar is the rear car on the train. It is generally called a caboose.

   1930, Ackerman V. Michigan Central Railroad Co. Gentinne V. Same, 249 MICH 693 (1930), page 70

   2 more examples

   The question certainly has two sides, some able managers thinking that keeping the locomotives circulating round without attaching any set practice of making a conductor, engineer, fireman and two brakemen follow a certain waycar and all keep together, taking out any engine which may be available for the run.

   1889 January, “Running Locomotives Without Regular Crews.”, in Locomotive Engineers’j Monthly Journal, volume XXIII, number 1, page 114

   Crewmembers left their winter clothes in the waycar, another name for the caboose, hitched 56 cars behind the engine.

   2013, Dena Bisnette, Joe Gilliam, Newton, Arcadia Publishing, page 38