I think is a lovely caboose, but typical LGB rubber ruler one at that. But if you send it down the road, please drop me a line, a pair of LGB ATSF F units are on my future want list, along with one of those huge cabooses. I will say that USA makes a really nice caboose, my wife just bought a Chessie wide vision to match her new GP38-2 that RLD is doing onboard battery with Crest TE RC control. Mike
Pete Lassen said:
(http://www.largescalecentral.com/filesharing/file/view/250/img-1798-jpg)Here is a picture with a USAT 50’ boxcar behind it, still think it is quite large, but several well respected guys have said they are supposed to be that tall.
Don’t know much about the subject (LGB or USAT) but, like others, that won’t stop me from offering an opinion(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Your right, they don’t look good together to me either. What scale is the boxcar? Without putting a scale rule to the boxcar and the caboose than comparing that to proto dimensions the whole conversation about what is to big or to small is kind of a moot point.
I see some good dimensional info has shown up on the caboose, what about the boxcar?
Yea, USA has 2 lines of boxcars. So without knowing which one, we don’t know for sure.
The USA boxcar being used for photo comparisons is a 1:29 scale boxcar.
http://www.usatrains.com/usatrains50box.html
http://www.usatrains.com/r19302a.html
I don’t have dimensions for that SP 50’ boxcar, but I do have them for a similar Santa Fe 50’ boxcar.
Pete…model by eye, you will respect yourself in the morning !
See, I have the other series of steel boxcars from USA, and they are noticeably smaller then the Aristo cars. I don’t have any of the series of USA boxcars that you have.
That “American” series is supposedly a 1:24 model of a small boxcar. The Ultimate series are very true to scale in 1:29, as are the Aristo, although the Aristo often need lowering between the truck and the body.
I gave away all my American series as it was not any good representation in 1:29… and unfortunately the “work train” series is also not 1:29, boy a bunch of cool cars.
Greg
Greg, I thought they were 1:24, but I wasn’t sure so I didn’t say so.
Just put a tanker or flat /gondola cars in front of it.
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Just put a tanker or flat /gondola cars in front of it.
That’s a pretty good idea. Good eye trick.
Probably not a tank car though as I seem to recall reading the Santa Fe did not like to put tank cars right next to a caboose for safety reasons. This was in the later years with the Indian Red paint scheme cabeese. But a flat car, or even a hopper would work.
Tankers are good for gummy scale. Below is my tanker train, with 1:29 Aristo, 1:22.5 Bachmann and 1:27? LGB tankers looking good (I think) in the same train. All pulled by a 1:29 USAT GEEP and followed by a1:29 USAT caboose, just after a bunch of 1:22.5 Bachmann, just to be fair.
But this is about a LGB Crummy, not tankers, sorry, just showing that tankers can easily slip the scale.
The caboose looks pretty small next to those tankers. Going forwards 3 tankers to the first black one looks like an aristo or USAT… would love to see a picture of the caboose flanked by a bachmann and a aristo/usat.
If I remember correctly, that extended vision caboose was fair-sized, not as small appearing in prototype as the santa fe “long” caboose used in the examples above.
Greg
if you dare cut into it, you could consider removing a quarter inch from above the windows…dont know if that is all that would be required but it might help.
Greg Elmassian said:
The caboose looks pretty small next to those tankers. Going forwards 3 tankers to the first black one looks like an aristo or USAT… would love to see a picture of the caboose flanked by a bachmann and a aristo/usat.
If I remember correctly, that extended vision caboose was fair-sized, not as small appearing in prototype as the santa fe “long” caboose used in the examples above.
Greg
You’re right, those two black tankers just entering the curve are USAT 1:29, followed by 3 silver Bachmann 1:22.5 tankers. That said, from ten feet, and with the train moving, they play well together, which is my point. I’m surprised that you didn’t mention that the two LGB 1:26? tankers on the head end overwhelm the 1:29 USAT locomotive.
Steve,
I heartily agree with your point. If it looks good to your eyes, run it! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)BTW, it looks OK to me.
Ok finally found my misplaced( put it in a safe spot) 1:29 scale ruler( they are technically called a scale, but s 1:29 scale scale sounds wrong) and the caboose measures in at a whopping 18ft tall and 42+ft long, compared to Matt’s drawing of 15ft tall and 35ft long, they did almost nail the width at 9ft 6" so first impressions were right, its a big’un, but we will see what happens with it. Cutting 3 scale feet out of the height and 5 out of the length is probably beyond my realm unless I wnat to make it look like a wreck, Im pretty sure I can do that. Thanks to everyone that chimed in, Thanks Matt for the technical drawings.
I’d just run it as is. As it’s still a pretty nice looking caboose.
There’s not too many out there that will probably even know. Well, except for those hard core wierdo Santa Fe modelers like myself. But most of the Santa Fe rivet counters are in the smaller scales like HO.
Yeah Matt, being as I bought it I will probably run it along with everything else, like some of the suggestions , just make up trains with a gondola or flat car, or get a bunch of tankers like Steve has that will make it look normal.
Looking at your model against the USA car and the prototype pictures, yeah it’s too big. Namely as everyone has mentioned it is too tall. I like roosters idea of smaller wheels and dropping the body down on the trucks if that is possible with the bolsters.
I agree about an inch would do it. Maybe a little could come off the bottom but an inch would be way too much.
Interesting challenge for sure. Seems to me figuring a way to drop the shell and ends over the frame would be doable.
Of course the very best idea is to run it as is and not worry about it unless you are specifically doing prototype modeling. It won’t be an eye sore that’s for sure.