Hi guys,

My new railroad didn’t have a caboose as I am still trying find time to do a standard gauge Rio Grande caboose scratchbuild. Late last month I bought an Aristo/Delton caboose on eBay. When it arrived I was pleased to find that its dimensions were pretty much spot-on for standard gauge at 1:29 scale. Here’s how it looked when I got it:

It was missing one of its brake wheels and one of the grabirons on the cupola. I replaced brake wheel from my spare parts box and built a new grabiron from brass wire. I replaced the couplers and added some turnbuckles to the truss rods and some air brake hoses. I replaced the marker lights with a pair from Precision Scale. I also lowered the body about 1/4".

I painted the roof flat black, then gave the body two coats of PBL Star Brand D&RGW Faded Boxcar Red paint. All of the grabirons were painted silver. I replaced its narrow gauge number with a prototypical standard gauge number and re-lettered the whole thing with more modern Grande lettering. I gave it a quick weathering and it’s now good to go:

A side shot. In the right light, you can still see the old lettering beneath the new paint - SO prototypical:

The caboose will be put into flanger train service later today.

Cheers,

Matt

Nice job. Not all projects have to be hige one to be good ones. You really dressed that lady up.

Good attention to detail, lettering looks just right, fine painting job, believable overall effect.

I like the track, ground cover, and ballast too. Colorado ballast!

edit: that would be believable with one L !

Quite a transformation, Matt. I really like the faded paint. Not scratchbuilt but still a custom piece. Well done.

Thank you all for the kind words.

John, my ballast is obtained from a certain spot along the highway just south of Granite. Colorado. I traveled regularly through Granite for work for about five months last year and brought home several five gallon buckets full of ballast on most trips. Ballast was stockpiled for months in anticipation of finishing the majority of my layout before the onset of winter. Winter began pretty early this year and I just made it.

The track is AMS 1:29 ties with Sunset Valley code 250 nickel silver rail. The rail comes looking like that - I haven’t done anything to it. On a previous railroad I used aluminum rail, but found that it expands and contracts too much for my liking in the Colorado weather.

Cheers,

Matt