I am currently working on a caboose that will be used in transfer, mainline and MOW operations. Does anyone know of a way in which I can make the caboose more realistic for this kind of use?
Picture of it as it is right now. Reporting marks have been sanded off of it since the picture was taken.
Paint will do a lot for it. Right now it has that plastic glossy look. Was it me, I’d use a rattle can of dark gray auto primer on the roof and cupola, some red auto primer on the gondola body and the trucks, and some plain red on the caboose body. Mask off each color with blue painters masking tape. Decal and then seal the decals with an overspray of Dullcote. The Dullcote will tone down the gloss red on the caboose body. Paint the underbody in light gray auto primer. Paint the grab irons and the edge of the bottom steps safety yellow.
Glaze the windows. Add wire grab irons. The cupola roof wants four corner irons, the sides want those semi circular caboose irons. A caboose wants a smoke jack for the stove.
Look for a photograph of the prototype see what your road did for markings which you simulate with decals. Add some lanterns.
Good luck.
Actually my railroad is freelanced, so as far as a prototype photo, there wouldn’t be one. However, I do appreciate the help. Will get to work adding those details!
Interesting design.
Is your railroad a ‘three couples and a dog’ shortline, running on a frayed shoestring? If so, that would be the ‘all-purpose way car,’ and LCL requiring weather protection would be carried inside the car body. Weathertight boxes, barrels and drummed goods would ride in the open-top section.
OTOH, for a larger road, that would probably be used for MW service. OTR and transfer cabooses have different, conflicting requirements. In more recent times that might be a ‘push platform,’ with plates welded over the windows, used only as a perch for the conductor when the locomotive is behind the rest of the train.
(Actually, you’ve given me an idea. The Tomikawa Tani Tetsudo needs an all-purpose way car.)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
So, do you call that a cabondla or a gondboose?
Chuck, the railroad was a family owned railroad, but was bought by the Lehigh Valley Railroad just days before the layout’s time frame. I figured that it would be a good time frame since I could run Valley equipment but run the BT&S’s older equipment.
As a general comment, you want to ask how to make things more realistic BEFORE you start cutting plastic. That way if people have suggestions you still have the opportunity to include them.
It becomes very hard to answer the question because you have combined 3 things at cross purposes.
A transfer caboose is generally a minimalist design. All it is is a shelter for the crew on a short hop, normally for a couple hours. To make your caboose into a transfer caboose, lose the cupola or plate over the windows and add small bay windows.
A road caboose normally has what’s needed for longer trips. It would have a cupola or large bay windows. Your caboose is big enough for that but the step arrangement is very unhandy. The grab irons and steps in the center are not placed to facilitate getting on and off a moving caboose within the safety rules. Unfortunately if you put the steps on the rear, you will have to move the truck forward to clear or else use the type of steps used on Northeastern style cabooses (PRR or RDG) that are very shallow.
When you say “MofW operations”, what are you intending? The gon area isn’t really big enough to haul anything other than a couple ties and some angle bars or spikes or maybe some tools. Its too small for a rail, points or a frog. There really isn’t a good way to unload a tie other than to lift it over the side of the gon (done that, not much fun).
If I was going to build something like this, I would have shortened the caboose to less than half the car and plated over the cupola or removed it and added some bay windows. I would have put a platform on the re
If you really wanted to change it up, put the caboose body on a new deck about a foot above the deck of the gon, add a step on the rear platform to that deck. Then cut away the end of the of the car from the gon deck to the new deck. What that gives you is a space to put rails under the caboose body. You load them with a crane, then unload them by chaining the end of the rail on the car to the track, then pulling the car out from under the rail. All sorts of MofW cars were built like this back in the day, although they didn’t have a caboose body, normally they had a tie and material crib above the rails.
Dave, I’m going on the idea that my little railroad had built this caboose originally for mainline service. As far as MOW, it is going to just house the crew, some tools, and a minimal amount of materials, such as rails, ties, you name it (the road has cars dedicated to carry large amounts of materials and tools). It suddenly found itself in transfer service due to a sudden shortage of equipment. The railroad’s original transfer caboose (which closely followed the standards for a transfer caboose) was destroyed in a wreck not to long before the buy out of my railroad by the Valley. Therefore, it had to be pulled from it’s regular use as a mainline caboose and occasional service as a MOW caboose.
There is no way it could haul rails as it is presently configured.
In the MofW portion I would put a half dozen or so new ties (they will be almost black, being new they are full of creosote), some N-scale barrels or 55 gal drums (about HO scale for spike kegs), an assortment of tools (spike mauls, sledgehammers, lining bars, claw bars, track jacks, tamping bars, shovels, pitchforks, tie tongs) plus some chain or cable.
You might also want to put some bars or heavy steel mesh over the windows on the gon end so they don’t get broken out by tools, ties being loaded, etc.
There is nothing magical about a transfer caboose. It is just a caboose with LESS than what a road caboose has. A road caboose would work just as well. A transfer caboose is just cheaper to build new.
To get it to the MofW caboose the railroad would have had to spend thousands of dollars to modify the road caboose. Converting a road caboose to a transfer caboose is zero to a couple hundred dollars. Cutting a caboose body off its underframe and welding it on a gon is thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars.
What makes more sense is a damaged
Firstly that is an epic bit of Kit bashing. Now if i may offer my English eyes and opinion what British Rail’s (BR) engineering department (MoW) Used to do as they were the Department that got the cast offs from the other Departments they would build equipment as they would need it From existing stock, one of the most interesting things that they built i have seen is an Old well wagon with a covered seating area were the load would have gone that was used For moving men around the work area this caboose could be used like this and as a rest area and tool storage area
you may what to add some mesh over the windows as some one has suggested You could add a Porch over the open area to keep the Tools and supplies safe from the weather and a portable generator for power
(sorry if this post is little terse/rude it’s quite early in the UK when i wrote this and i am tired and not quite awake and please excuse any spelling grammar mistakes0
Since you’re freelanced, I would look for a variety of transfer caboose photos. Combine their concepts as you desire and then you’re going to be more like the real thing.
Richard
