In the 1840s, staff at the Auburn & Syracuse Line Railroad in New York developed the idea of the caboose, the last car of a freight train, which served as crew quarters and the conductor's office. A five-member crew included an engineer, fireman, conductor, and two brakemen. The conductor rode in the caboose with the brakemen and was the boss on the train, while the engineer rode up front driving the train and the fireman kept it fueled. In the early years of steam power, brakemen manually stopped each car as the train slowed, but by the 1870s, after the invention of automatic air brakes, their duties shifted to flagging signals to the engineer. As technology advanced to include computers and radios, freight train crews were reduced to only a conductor and engineer. Once a proud symbol of the national railroad system, the caboose has become increasingly rare. The last car was also known as a crummy, cage, doghouse, bouncer, way car, or hack, but by 1870 the rolling headquarters of the train crew was widely called a caboose. Red was the typical caboose color because its brightness improved safety by warning approaching trains to slow down and avoid collisions, though this caboose was originally orange. Inside, pipes running overhead and along the walls gave workers something to grab when the ride became rough, and the cupola on top provided a lookout point for watching for trouble on the tracks.