Boston and Maine caboose #104610 was built in 1921 by the Laconia Car Works in Laconia, New Hampshire. It is a 30-foot center cupola design constructed of wood on a steel frame, one of a series of fifty cabooses numbered 104600 to 104649. Because the 1046 series was more lightly constructed than other cabooses, these cars were used for short local freight runs that did not require a helper locomotive to push trains up grades. In the late 1950s, many of the 1046 series cabooses were converted to all steel or scrapped. Few survivors are known, and most are in derelict condition, with #104610 the only survivor that still appears as it did after its last overhaul in the late 1940s. It was photographed at work on the end of a Boston and Maine freight train on July 25, 1944, in Wakefield, Massachusetts. In 1957, the Hartford Chamber of Commerce purchased caboose 104610 from the Boston and Maine Railroad for use as an information center and placed it with locomotive "Old 494" behind the Hartford Municipal Building, now called the Town Hall. After years of weather exposure caused both the caboose and locomotive to deteriorate, they were moved to their current site. A volunteer group of railroad enthusiasts, Friends of the 494, working under the direction of the Hartford Parks and Recreation Department, cosmetically restored the locomotive and caboose and secured funds for a protective cover, and cosmetic restoration of caboose 104610 and locomotive 494 remains in progress.