When my mom was a kid, there was a train track that ran close to their farm. When her brothers/sisters and she heard the train coming, they would all run to watch it go by. She said the man in the caboose would usually toss some chewing gum out for them as he went by. Sometimes they found it...sometimes they didn't.

Being born in 78, I vaguely remember seeing cabooses on trains. They are pretty cool.