I’m in the process of building/retrofitting several Cabeese and am toying with the idea of Red marker lights (1mm red LED’s) as well as lighted interiors.
Was it customary for the Caboose to be lighted while in transit during the night? To some this may sound like a foolish quetion but I’m thinking the light would have interfered with the crew’s night vision.
Fergie
I thought cabEEse are shipped south for the winter. actually cabooses were lit dimly.
Aagh, grammar attack!!!
I would think that they would be lighted, as the crew had stuff to do, like paperwork.
most cabooses had table lights for the crews to do paperwork…I just installed red marker lights on my cabeese and it came out pretty good…I used a kadee copper coupler spring and bent it and installed it on the trucks in a way that it made great electrical wheel pickups…then wired it to a 580 ohm resistor and a red LED which i mounted on my SP bay window C-30 cabooses…i painted the back portion of the LED with boxcar brown paint, painted a small silver ring on it for a lens, and left the front part bare so the red light would shine through…don’t forget to put in a .1MUF capacitor across the leads (before the resistor) so that the light won’t flicker too much when you hit sections of dirty track …here’s a picture of it…I took the picture with the lights off so the red light could be seen…chuck
Most cabeese did not have electric - light would be by oil lamp.
Where in the heck are you guys getting 1mm led’s at??? I’ve only seen 3’s and 5’s.
(My kingdom for a 1mm!)
Panasonic makes 2mm leds. The body is larger but has a long 2mm light pipe. The lens can be mounted in a hole with the body inside. The pipe can cut if you poli***he end.
Digykey sells them for about $0.25 each. Panasonic Part # LN222RP. DIGIKEY PART # P424
www.digikey.com
Actually I rounded the number. It’s actually a 1.3mm LED and I got it from the Walther’s Catalogue. When I get home I’ll send you the part number.
Hey I didn’t invent the word Cabeese! I thought that was an Americanism of plural Caboose. Like many of the words on this forum it’s being creative[}:)][;)]
Fergie
I’m going to light some Cabeese in the future. To save the bulbs and reduce power load, though, I’m installing small Minitronics slide switches in the underside of the body. Most of the time, I’ll leave them off, but for “show” mode or when I feel like doing night runs, I can flip them on.
ummmmm
whats a cabeese? i didnt know you meant caboose for a second!
GEARHEQAD426
im feeling very dum rite now
[8]
I used Utah Pacific marker light kits (don’t know whether or not they’re still available). They are a bit over-size in order to fit the 1.5v bulb but they still look pretty nice. I chose to install a holder for a sub-mini 1.5v battery inside the caboose, controlled by a sub-sub-mini SPST toogle switch installed in the floor. You have to take the body off to replace the bulb but one battery powers these for a LONG time.
Believe it or not, 1.3mm LEDs are big compared to some of the surface mount (SMD) units available. I wouldn’t recommend going smaller than an 0805, though.
Ngineering http://www.ngineering.com/ has some nice tips on soldering them and offers some for sale, but you can get them cheaper from mouser.com or digikey.com
And GATR http://www.gatrworks.com/ offers some nice little kits for N scale cabeese, complete with switches and extra wire.
Mike Tennent
Ditto, but I get more comments on caboose with these lamps than any other piece of equpiment I own. I run the light bulbs at 1.1 volts to ensure “long life”.
Thanks a lot guys! I got all that book marked.
digi-key has 1mm LED’s…
as for the plural of ‘caboose’…I always thought it was cabooseseseseseses
Actually there is no accepted pural. Caboose, Cabeese, Cabooses, are all used.
A buddy of mine uses Tomar markers, and they look great. Somehow the EOTs I use, just aren’t the same. Maybe I should reserect some cabooses for my double stack trains.[:P]
Nick
In an effort to justify my I favored word for the plural of caboose, I did some research on root words and origins. Starting with similar words with known proper plural conjegations like moose, goose, noose, calaboose, etc. I found the one closest to caboose and the answer was obvious. No, I won’t ruin everyone’s fun, and tell. It is a scientific process that anyone who wants to know can repeat. Especially since the result wasn’t my favored one.
When I used to work the tail end, we would only turn on the lights when needed and usually only for a minute or so, with the lights off you can see alot better while watching your train. We used to keep the track lights on to the rear all the time so we could easily see if there was any scaring from dragging equipment.
The correct spelling of caboose is “W-A-Y C-A-R.” The correct plural is “way cars.”
At least on the Burlington…
[:o)]