By james art 
October 4 – After returning from a camping trip last weekend, Rick Martinez and his wife were horrified when they passed the red caboose at the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Cerrillos Road and saw that the large Zia symbol on his side was gone.
The symbol that Martinez had painted on a caboose a decade earlier was replaced with the logo of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The “Santa Fe, New Mexico” sign was also repainted in a font used by Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, the organization that currently owns the caboose.
A former board member of the nonprofit, formally the Santa Fe Beautiful Committee Inc., Martinez spearheaded the 2015 fundraising campaign to purchase a caboose from the Santa Fe Southern Railroad.
However, he resigned in protest last summer when the organization released a proposal to repaint a caboose with the Keep Santa Fe Beautiful logo.
The nonprofit abandoned the idea, which leaders said at the time was just an idea. However, Martinez said the latest changes appear to be the end of that controversy.
“With the changes they made, it represents them. It does not represent the community,” he said.
He also pointed to a more personal motive.
“I just feel like they wanted to make sure my handprints were completely gone,” he said.
Chris McClary, board chair of Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, had a different explanation.
“We just wanted to bring it back to pristine condition and historic appearance,” he said in an interview Friday.
McClary said the board voted unanimously to have the caboose repainted because some people in the community had expressed concerns that it looked a little shabby. He said the new logo is a throwback to the way it looked when he was acting.
“It’s the historical look and that’s what we were trying to do,” he said.
Martinez said he received permission in 2014 from Santa Fe Southern and the city manager at the time to paint a caboose as a “community beautification project.”
He felt the Zia symbol was unique and gave the caboose a unique New Mexican vibe.
“And with this logo that they have now, it’s everywhere, USA,” he said.
Martinez said the new wording also doesn’t make sense because the caboose doesn’t belong to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, but to the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, where it travels on the Chili Line.
In a 2015 interview, then-Santa Fe Southern CEO and general manager Carl Seibart said he didn’t have the “full story” of the caboose, but that it was likely a Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad steel caboose from the end in the 1940s or early 1950s.
Martinez said that in the future, he would like the caboose to be maintained by some type of friendly association committed to its maintenance, rather than Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, which he feels has not taken proper care of it.
Along with changing the exterior of the train, he said neither the city nor the nonprofit maintained the area around it, resulting in the caboose being surrounded by what he described as trash, weeds and overgrown trees .
“If you were standing in La Choza, you couldn’t even see a caboose,” he said, referring to a popular restaurant at 905 Alarid St.
Martinez said a maintenance man who worked for the Best Daze Dispensary, which is next to the caboose, helped trim the branches this summer so they could be seen again.
McClary said maintaining the area around the caboose is the city’s responsibility.
The 2015 agreement between the nonprofit and the city says caboose use is “limited to the placement, display and maintenance” of the wagon.
Any other use of the caboose — including commercial, residential, art display or advertising — is permitted only with the written consent of the city.
Martinez emailed City Manager John Blair on Sunday asking about the changes. Blair replied that he didn’t know anything had been done to the caboose until Martinez contacted him.
In a text message Friday, city spokeswoman Regina Ruiz wrote that the group is “preserving the historic appearance of the Caboose.”
If the group plans to make “substantial changes,” it will need approval from the city, she noted.