I bought this prewar 1682 caboose about 20 years ago at a train show and until today I’d never seen another like it! What’s so special about it? It has what appear to be professionally installed postwar staple end sliding shoe nuckle couplers trucks. Here are a few pics of mine:
In this last one you can see the latch coupler tabs, but it’s beyond my knowledge to know wether or not they were pushed back down. Also, the wear patterns on the frame suggest a larger truck may have been present.
I also have a 1680 tank car that originally had the same kind of trucks and couplers. I kept the trucks, but bent the tabs back out and installed short shank latch couplers to run it with prewar freights. I never got around to the caboose, but now I’m wondering if I should leave it alone?
So my knowledgable friends, is this factory work? The work of a talented hobbyist? A Madison Hardware retrofit? Has anyone ever seen or does anyone own another caboose or car like this?
Yes, that tab with a slit in it was pushed down to make room for the newer knuckle coupler’s drawbar.
The work of either a hobbyist, or a Lionel repair station.
The slit was for the older box, or latch coupler’s drawbar.
1682 was the Latch Coupler version, 2682 the box coupler. Original as “Lionel-Ives” in 1933, then “Lionel Jr” in 1934, and finally “Lionel O-27” in 1937.
As for the photos: Someone carefully bent open the body tabs and removed the body. Then cut off the ends of the frame that held the Link Couplers, bent down the inside tab flush, and mounted post war trucks. He then re-installed the body but did not completely bend down the tabs to avoid breaking them. A good looking, runable, caboose but with zero collector value.
Very common, often found clean and un-scratched at Train Shows at good prices. At a large meet like TCA York, the 16XX (26XX) cars are all over the place.
My father’s set has these type of tin cars and when he would set up his ‘Big’ Lionel trains, it was a treat to my brother and I, as we boys had the ‘Little’ wind-up Marx trains.
