A brake man with the wrong lantern!

[doctorwayne]

I believe that a red lantern would have been used, at night, of course, to "flag" a train which has had difficulties of some sort, and is stopped on a track where another train may be approaching, either ahead of, or behind the stalled train.

Perhaps your very nicely-done switchman is just getting off the caboose, in preparation for a long walk back along the tracks.

Wayne