What is a long caboose? I’ve looked on the internet and can’t seem to find a definition of one. I’d like to get a soundtrax decoder for lighting one and they say for insertion in a long caboose. (HO layout).
Well that is not a term I am familiar with but the first thing that pops into my head is a drovers caboose which is longer than a standard caboose with 3 or 4 windows at one end for carrying passengers. I would estimate one to be 50 to 60’ long.
How about a link to where they make this statement? Maybe that would be helpful in determining what they really mean.
Yes, I’ve seen drover cabeese even with sliding doors for their horses. I wonder if there is a minimum and maximum length to qualify as a long caboose or were they manufactured by one company that makes them being able to be called a long caboose.
www.soundtraxx.com in their accessory decoder area.
If that is all your doing, A SoundTraxx decoder sounds like overkill.
Digitrax and TCS sell function only decoders that are really small. Not much bigger than a dime.
I have a long caboose, a NYC Pacemaker caboose buitt from a 40 foot boxcar. NYC did five of them. I think they were about 41 feet long.
Rich
gregc has it right. You have to be a Rio Grande fan to really understand. The narrowgauge cabooses were divided in two general groups - the short cabooses and the long ones. Some of the long ones actually started out as short ones, which were also initially four-wheel underframes, too. Long story about rebuilding and taxes, so not really the same car, except for a few recycled parts possibly.
You can find all the cabooses in various brass iterations. PSC makes a nice group of kits to build many of the short ones in HOn3. LaBelle offers a wood kit in HON3. In any case, Blackstone offers the Rio Grande long caboose in RTR HOn3, which is what the drop in lighting is designed to fit.
Yes, that is correct. And it explains all that at the Blackstone site: http://www.soundtraxx.com/accessorydecoders/accessorydecoders.php
After re-reading the Blackstone site, I am going to assume that a long caboose is anyone with a body length of 25 foot or longer.
Well not really… a “long caboose” is a specific type of D&RGW narrow gauge caboose as noted earlier in the thread. Others may be as long or longer, but regardless of what they are they aren’t “long cabooses.” It’s a term like “Big Boy” that was a nickname for one thing. If you want to know if something designed for a long caboose will fit something you have, as long as it’s as big as the D&RGW model or bigger then it should fit.
Thank you for that explanation. I now know clearly the definition of a long caboose.