What is the average length of a HO caboose?
Trying to determine how many will fit on my dedicated caboose track. Unfortunately I haven’t purchased any as of yet.
Thanks
Sheldon
Sheldon
Since most railroads built their own caboose, hack, cabin, crummy, shack, or way car. It would depend on the road that built them. Like the different names there are different lengths also.
Look to your prototype road for specific information.
Pete
Good advice from Pete.
However you are probably safe using the length of a 40’ box car as a guide. Most cabooses were/are a little shorter, although there are some exceptions.
For instance, the longer cabooses on the Western Pacific were the same length as the “40-foot” boxcars they were rebuilt from. The rest of the cabooses were shorter.
30-40 ft typically. 40 ft would cover most cabooses.
If you want a Canadian example, the CN vans (wooden) were a little over 35 feet long, not counting couplers.
Steve
3-4 inches per car should be close enough i figure
For N scale maybe, not HO which was the question. A 40’ car in HO scale is about 6 inches long. Many cabooses were actually built on old boxcar frames.
Normally they’d be between 25-35’ unless you’re using four-wheel “bobber” cabooses, or cabooses converted by the railroad from old 40’ wood boxcars. 30’ would probably be a good rule of thumb.
FWIW, here in Minnesota, the law requires cabooses be at least 24’ long and have at least two four-wheel trucks. If you look at the old Missabe Road wood cabooses (like the Walthers model) closely, you can see that they were made by combining two four-wheel bobbers together into one caboose.