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

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They don’t have coal cars any more either.

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Train loads of coal roll through my town daily

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He is referring to the tender for a steam locomotive as a "coal car."

In the early 90's I had an idea to get a caboose and sell sabrett hotdogs out of it.. I contacted my local railroad and they quoted me.. get this.... $2,500 delivered.. and I didn't do it...

You could not touch one for $125,000 today..

I really screwed that deal up for sure..

But.. at that time. My second ex kept me penniless.

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No one wants to be the caboose when you’re running a train

Unless it’s your Destiny.

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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.

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

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We didn't get rid of them.

All the cabooses identify as locomotives now.

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As a kid looking for the caboose was one of my favorite car ride activities

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When I was a kid we had an old lady relative we had to go visit every so often. There was a train that ran near her property and when we heard it we would always run over to try and see if this was going to be the train that actually had a caboose. Always disappointed. Thinking back it was probably the adults that would hype us up telling to go see if there was the mystical caboose.

I didn’t even notice until you posted this, but having the misfortune to have to litigate against CSX, I can honestly say they are as bad as big tobacco and worst than asbestos companies etc.

Mr Train conductor can you tell me your name?

Train conductor: All I can say is we blew the whistle at least 6 times before we hit the school bus.

(I swear this basically a true story)

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I didn’t even notice until you posted this, but having the misfortune to have to litigate against CSX, I can honestly say they are as bad as big tobacco and worst than asbestos companies etc.

Mr Train conductor can you tell me your name?

Train conductor: All I can say is we blew the whistle at least 6 times before we hit the school bus.

(I swear this basically a true story)

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Why was your client's school bus on the railroad tracks in front of a train?

*I actually loved the railroad lawyers. Basically told an Illinois State Trooper captain (or whatever higher rank they have) to suck my entire dick when he demanded my drivers license and there wasn't a thing he could do about it.

Had left a loaded hopper car upside down on the street after it derailed off a bridge.

As far as cabooses go, they mostly came off in the 80's after crew consists were adjusted to reality. (Unions were not happy but was difficult to justify) Before that there were 5 guys on a crew. Even mainline trains that did no work enroute. Three on the locomotive and two on the caboose.

On the head end;
Engineer
Fireman (they were disappearing through attrition for the most part)
Head Brakeman

Caboose;
Conductor
Rear Brakeman

Won't go into all the reasons that they used to have guys on the rear of the train. Just know that technology and changes in some operating rules made them unnecessary.