Did we ever get a good explanation on why they got rid of cabooses?

Covid

Cost cutting measures. Railroads lobbied to have fewer crew members, congress took the money and made it so. It is how everything works. When you don't have as many crew you don't need crew quarters.

More automation = less crew, so no need.

They don’t have coal cars any more either.

Edit:
My bad - They don’t have tenders any more.

quote:

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technology changing so they don’t need them anymore

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Technology and staffing requirements for trains. Now it only takes two in the engine and one is really a back up.

I still appreciate a good caboose on a lady.

So you’ve never had a train come to a stop and the only car blocking you was the caboose?

Militant whites began complaining about the harsh treatment and substandard level of service they had become used to in the decades prior which led to widespread civil unrest and demonstrations across the North and Mid West.

Many cited their frustrations with the available selection of bourbon and cigars. Mainly, however, the quality and preparation of appetizers by inexperienced sous chefs with little or no culinary training was coupled with the limited variety of entrées, which essentially was the straw that broke the camels back.

The customary soup and salad had, for many, begun to fall out of favor due to restrictions placed on the manner with which it was consumed i.e. being required to use forks, knives, and spoons, and the more widely ridiculed practice of being offered napkins. The social acceptance of consuming with one’s bare hands was rising in popularity and was largely attributed to the success and profitability of the newly created hot dog industry.

The result was unexpected, but welcomed after the quality of prepackaged gas station sandwiches were significantly improved with the addition of popular condiments such as mayonnaise. With the invention of saran wrap, which became widely available to low income families, most railways began serving all the sleeper cars and commuters.

This gave many the satisfaction of knowing they were suffering together without the viable alternative of ordering from menu à la cart. But more importantly, it began to antiquate the pestering thought in the back of everyone’s mind, that if you could afford better travel accommodations, they were available.

Digitization of railway systems made them obsolete & unnecessary

In general, passenger trains never had cabooses (a/k/a cabeese); the conductor rode in the passenger cars. These days, in freight trains the conductor rides in the lead locomotive instead of a caboose, unless the train has to shove (run in reverse) a significant distance, in which case there's often a "shoving platform", often an old caboose with the interior closed off. Instead of the caboose, a freight train has to have an "end-of-train device" i.e. flashing red light at night, or solely during daylight hours a red flag.

In the steam locomotive era (for major U.S. railroads, it ended in 1959 or 1960), and especially when the car brakes were manual, far more crew were required: at least the engineer and the fireman in each locomotive, sometimes supplemented with an auxiliary fireman (if the locomotive lacked an automatic stoker and more than a certain amount of coal-shoveling was required), a coal-cutter, and/or a head-end brakeman / switchman; and the conductor and sometimes a read-end brakeman in the caboose. These days, everything can be controlled from the lead locomotive, and the conductor plus a lot more automation handle the other duties.

[ETA]
The reason you find yourself sitting and waiting for trains for longer now is that the trains have gotten a lot longer, for economic reasons. So not only do they take longer to pass, if they have to stop, they foul more crossings.

Aw nevermind