Large Scale Central

A Caboose on the property?

Operations
#15

John Passaro said:

Well to me there’s no train without a caboose; “mandatory” (well maybe not on a heavyweight passenger train), but I thought it was really funny when I saw Ken’s Rio Grande Southern because just before Christmas my children and I decided to create a Christmas ore train out of our gem and mineral collections and we added —you guessed it — a Rio Grande Southern caboose!

Yours looks good. Mine started out as a B’mann center cupola caboose. It got kit bashed a bit, I have another one on the work bench that I got from Lou in York that’s gonna get the same treatment. I’m just waiting on some scribed siding from Caboose Hobbies to get started on it.

#16

I thought when you have an engine you needed the matching cabeese!
Most of my engines have a matching cabeese!
So yes I run with Cabeeses!

#17

Your caboose looks good John but I think you had it running backwards in that video?

Now to add to the original question “do you run a caboose with your trains” which way do you place the cupola toward the front or back?

#18

Marker lights go to the back…cupola don’t matter.

Just so happens the lights are glued on at the short end…:wink:

#19

Todd, I place mine with the marker lights toward the rear. So that means my cabeese run with the cupola toward the rear. Its because they were built with the marker lights only on that end. Is that prototypical? I dunno. Some of my cabeese didn’t even have couplers on that end, until the railroad could afford more couplers.

#20

My “weathered” #0574, Accucraft brass, round roof, long caboose.

BTW, I took this photo with the caboose at the rear of my “Chili Line” consist. My bad, should have turned the car around with the markers to the rear!

Spealing of marker lamps…I’m redoing my 1 1/2" caboose and added my new marker lights today.

#21

Now ya need to add lamp hangers to the other end of the crummy, so that when the train gets hooked onto the other end, the conductor can move the lamps.

This is why they call it a hobby.

Oh, and there should be two more rivets on that thing, too.

#22

Steve Featherkile said:

Now ya need to add lamp hangers to the other end of the crummy, so that when the train gets hooked onto the other end, the conductor can move the lamps.

This is why they call it a hobby.

Oh, and there should be two more rivets on that thing, too.

:slight_smile:

#23

I’m jealous of all the nice paint jobs on the cabeese. The maintenance shop on my Rapidly Going South line is so cheap they don’t even consider re-painting if you can still see any of the original color.

Bob

#24

Bob, that’s real smart lookin’, right there. :slight_smile:

Wisht MY cabeese had such a great Cadillac finish as that.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#25

Absolutely, a caboose is a requirement on all trains. We don’t have air brakes, so the brakemen need some place to call home when not crawling over the cars setting the brakes. The Tuscarora RR currently has use of 5 East Broad Top RR cabooses for its trains.

EBT Caboose #2 - “Panic”

Built c. 1874 from a Bilmeyer & Smalls flat car. Unkown where the name “Panic” comes from.

EBT Caboose #4

Builder unknown, build date unknown, but likely 1880s

Undocumented on EBT rosters, but appears in at least one photo.

EBT Caboose #26

Built 1905, EBT shops, believed to have been built from a 30’ flat car. Later converted to work caboose, receiving new round roof without cupola.

EBT Caboose #27 (1st)

Built 1907 by EBT shops

EBT Caboose #28

Built 1920 by EBT shops. Steel frame with wood siding.

Of these, #4 and #26 have lights for night operations.

Plans are afoot to build a model of EBT Caboose #1, their first caboose (c. 1873). This was a Billmeyer & Smalls caboose very similar to early D&RG cabooses. No timetable on its construction.

Later,

K

#26

I always have to run a caboose. To me it looks naked without one. That’s like running a engine without cars behind it. I just cant do it.

#27

We’d like to have a full-size caboose in the backyard, just so’s we could sit in it and dream.

However, even a 27-footer would barely fit between the fences, and the local fascists in the county planning office would have conniptions.

That apart from getting one over here - imagine the size of the box!!!

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#28

tac Foley said:

We’d like to have a full-size caboose in the backyard, just so’s we could sit in it and dream.

However, even a 27-footer would barely fit between the fences, and the local fascists in the county planning office would have conniptions.

That apart from getting one over here - imagine the size of the box!!!

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

Have it boxed as a kit. :wink:

#29

Dear Nephew - having wide experience of the products of that ‘well-known Swedish furniture company’, I can categorically advise you that the box would be substantially larger than the item within, even as a flat-pack. When I bought one of the very last Sheridan caboose kits a few years back, it almost took three strong men and an ig to get it off the flatbed. SHE made be build it outside the house as it wouldn’t go through the door.

tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Throbbing Thumb Boys

#30

To me the train don’t look right without a caboose.

#31

Apropos building a caboose in your backyard, a while back I was talking to a backyard shed builder at the gun club. HE brought up the subject of sheds for reloading in the backyard, and overhearing this conversations, asked him how much it would cost to build a caboose-shaped shed in a person’s backyard. By a stroke of good fortune, this fine gentleman actually knew what a caboose was, being a great fan of both Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine - stars of ‘Emperor of the North’. He later emole me with a quotation for a bobber AND a shorty caboose.

The bobber - 18 feet long with a small centre cupola and veranda ends, was going to be £1850.00 including the put-up, but the 25-foot shorty ‘grounded caboose’ with a cupola was going to be a whopping £3295.00.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#32

Steve Featherkile said:

Now ya need to add lamp hangers to the other end of the crummy, so that when the train gets hooked onto the other end, the conductor can move the lamps.

This is why they call it a hobby.

Oh, and there should be two more rivets on that thing, too.

I’d be interested in being able to do that to my Bachmann long caboose. Is anyone aware of a method to do that? Patrick

#33

Patrick Kramer said:

Steve Featherkile said:

Now ya need to add lamp hangers to the other end of the crummy, so that when the train gets hooked onto the other end, the conductor can move the lamps.

This is why they call it a hobby.

Oh, and there should be two more rivets on that thing, too.

I’d be interested in being able to do that to my Bachmann long caboose. Is anyone aware of a method to do that? Patrick

Buy some caboose marker lamps from Trackside Details to replace the Bachmann lamps. Scale hangers are also provided. Beautiful castings. TD-15 Marker Lamps…http://www.tracksidedetails.com/parts1-50/page2.html

Replace the lenses with fresnel lenses from Mouser Electronics. Perfect fit!

#34

Gary,

I like the look of the Bachmann’s marker lamps. I think I already have some TD markers but don’t think they are 1:20th scale. I’d like to make something like you have on your 1&1/2" scale caboose so they could be moved between ends. Ideally, the bracket would act as the electrical connection also.

Patrick