I would like to find a really well detailed HO caboose to add to my roster. I have a couple of older Atlas (2002) cabooses that really don’t look so good now days. Road name not particuluraly important nor running gear as I usually install my own trucks / wheel sets and couplers as needed. Recomended manufacturers or sources would be appreciated. Thanks, geoff
If price is no object, the Rapido Canadian wide vision “vans” are beautiful models.
American Model Builders as an assortment of laser wood kit cabooses that build up into nice looking cars.
I think the Walthers DM&IR short caboose is pretty neat.
Dave Nelson
We have an Ambroid 1 of 5000 kit I built in 1963.
And an old timer, Roundhouse kit. Fox trucks, side loading door. My B&M picture books don’t show anything like this wearing B&M colors, but it just reeks of local mixed freight and passenger trains, with the caboose crew handling some express packages, so I did it. May not be prototypical, but I like it.
And another Roundhouse kit. A 26 foot steel two window job. This one is a real B&M caboose, with several prototype photos. The photos even show the C34 car number.
And yet another Roundhouse kit. The B&M’s latest steel, four window caboose in the Mcginnis blue bird color scheme of the mid 1950’s.
And a Walthers kit. Came from Walthers painted for the C&O. I repainted for the B&M. There are a number of photographs of very simular cars on the B&M.
After buying a few of the Rapido and Athearn Genesis caboose with lights would not consider anything else.
Seeing your train go by with the marker lights lit is worth the extra bucks.
The Proto 2000 Northeastern cabeese are quite nice. They are, of course, rather distinctive and suited only for a few roads, but if you are freelancing there are several plausible explanations that would account for that style of caboose on your railroad.
–Randy
I like everything Rapido, however I don’t have a caboose by them. I really like my three Trueline Trains cabeese. They are very nice. When I first saw them I couldn’t buy just one, I had to buy three.[:-^]
The one on the right is past my era. I just say it was a test paint job done years earlier for future considerations. That’s the story and I’m sticking to it.[(-D]
Cabooses are often pretty much tailored to the unique look desired by the owning railroad. For a shortline, it’s fairly common to buy a caboose from a nearby larger road. So it makes sense to keep that in mind. Aside from that, it’s just a matter of finding a caboose that looks like what you want. Walthers makes and has made several nice ones representing several disparate roads. So do Atlas, Bowser, and others. If you want a kit, you might look at those produced by American Model Builders.
Although I like just about all cabooses, I’m partial to the Funaro & Camerlengo kits for the Southern’s wood cabooses.
But Southern also had bay windows too, and even though Wright Track Models offers a very nice kit, I think that it is too expensive, so I converted several Athearn BW cabooses. They’re not true SRR, but is only a minor kitbash to capture the flavor of one.
Here are some well detailed cabooses. 
Riogrande5761:
Who made your cabooses?
Dave
Dave,
Jim has both OMI and Division Point Cabooses.
I have several OMI Rio Grande cabooses and am very happy with them. While people think brass is unaffordable, cabooses are a lot easier to finance than a loco these days. While it doesn’t seem to matter to the OP, there is nothing that says you layout is a certain time, place, and RR than its distinctive cabooses.
Here is a low-angle pic of one of my OMI cabooses.
Down here in sunny Tampa, one can always find a “good looking caboose” just by going to the gulf beaches![:D]
Various scales, also!
Sorry, boys, but the title of this thread just cried out for it!!!
Cedarwoodron
Here are two cabeese made by Trueline Trains. Very well detailed for Canadian National. In the back (from left to right) one from Walthers, a kit from Roundhouse and a RTR from Roundhouse.
Have you checked out the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue? [:-^]
I’ve picked up several of these Milwaukee cabeese from Walthers:
The red Erie caboose is a $3 train show pickup and worth every bit of that. I always pick up a copy of the Walthers monthly flyer and look for bargains. These are close to $40 MSRP, but if you wait for a sale you’ll find them for under $20.
I’ve added interior detailing to one of them. I put in lighting, and a pair of Tomar lanterns. Now that it’s done, I realize that the interior was more work than it was worth, because you really can’t see much of it throught he windows, but I really like the lanterns and will add them to more of my cabeese when I have time.
Nice photo Jim! Yes, OMI and the 4 stripe with the inset “modernized” windows is Division Point (the window treatement wasn’t the best but “ok”). Div Pt decided to offer “as-delivered” cabooses witht he wood sash windows and then adapt the same body for the moderized window version, but the inset is quite deep compared to how the real thing looks, due to the thickness of the brass sides.
The thing about brass cabooses is for some railroads, it’s the ONLY way so far that you can get a correct caboose - certainly for D&RGW. All the Atlas wide vision D&RGW, as decent as they are, are still only “stand-in’s” and don’t match the real thing. The 3-window steel rivited and welded cabooses built by D&RGW own shops in the 1940’s and 1950’s are a brass only caboose although a craftsman kit version was offered for a while, they are now rare and hard to find, and a “project” if you do find them. All of my painted brass cabooses (4) were about $220 ea and I picked up 2 unpainted for about $150 ea, so still need to get them painted and decalled.
The nice thing is that in the past 5 years, plastic detailed RTR versions of some nice cabooses have been hitting the market for some railroads. Hopefully we will see this trend continue as caboose are like passenger cars, there were so many different ones made for so many different railroads, in the past, the only way you could have correct cabooses was brass only. That is slowly changing.
Here’s a “scratch bash”, where I found the carbody parts for this class N3A caboose at a train show years ago. I added the (modified) underframe, trucks, couplers, roof and hand-fashioned details. Kinda crude by standards now, but I have two more sets of carbody parts which I plan to build someday.
Sorry about the distortion. Guess I need a primer on how to post photos on this forum.
I have one of those “Erie” cabooses that you’ve pictured. I believe that’s an old MDC model, if I’m not mistaken. I picked mine up at Caboose Hobbies for about $4.00. Being an Erie/Erie Lackawanna fan however, that kit still sits in the box, as it is not as close to being prototypically correct as I’d like. Even the body style is incorrect. The Walthers bay window version of the Erie Lackawanna caboose, with some modifications, does come close to the prototype bay window caboose for that road. But, if you’re free-lancing, a repaint would be fine.
ALL CABOOSII ARE GOOD LOOKING 1
Centralia and Intermountain make some nice ones. I just got one of the later, and it does have more detail than the Atlas ones.
Luckily for me, the Atlas EV caboose is really close (if not a dead ringer) for a good chunk of the BN’s cabooses.