about cabooses

[Green_Elite_Cab]

I've read another topic about the use of cabooses. However, I don't live in the US so I don't often see a 'real' US train passing me , nor have I had that pleasure when I was younger. :-)
Are cabooses still used today, or only sporadically, or are these now all phased out?
If so, when did this happen, and until what year (when modeling a certain era) could you still get away with putting them on a train?
When did steel cabooses first get introduced?

Thanks, Koos

cabooses saw regular usage up in Northern NJ all the way until maybe a year or two ago (and i think they still run them), but Norfolk Southern on the commuter lines in that area. A red "Conrail" caboose was the usual suspect, usually behind a Norfolk southern GP of some kind. Ironically, the red conrail cabooses never belonged to conrail, but were ordered by conrail just as CSX/NS split came about in 1998. NS decided to leave them in full Conrail Reporting marks. You will also tend to see alot of cabooses on the short freights on the Northeast Corridor.

Cabooses are often seen as a safety measure on freights entering areas primarily run by Passengers, which explains their frequent appearance.

i also recently saw a plated over CSX (former conrail) caboose (on the back of an NS train ironically enough), that i think was a "pushing platform" going across Pennsylvania.