Description
The Half-Bay Window was a design championed by the New York Central and their successors and was adopted by a handful of other roads. When researching railroads, the "what" happened is often easy to find. The "why" it happened is more often then not an educated guess that is repeated until it becomes common wisdom. The guess for the existence of the Half-Bay Window design was to give the railroad the visibility of the bay window while still clearing low and tight obstructions such as through girder bridges and depot platforms.
Norfolk & Western inherited 100 bay window cabooses in their 1964 acquisition of the Nickel Plate Road. At first these cars received the N&W “hamburger” logo but in 1971 the company adopted the conjoined gothic NW logo and most of the fleet would receive this scheme prior to the Norfolk Southern consolidation.
