Modeling Cabooses

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I model the Southern Railway from 1940-60. #1 who makes a close bay window caboose for this era? I think that they were wood. Did they own very many wide vision cabooses at all? Where can I get a hold of a number roster of the cabooses? 2. Is the moldco transfer caboose that is out close to any of the transfer cabooses that Southern owned? thanks Greg

-- Greg (Southern4501@hotmail.com), January 07, 2001

Answers

Greg--that depends on how close you want to get. The Athearn BW cab is close and Jim Six had an article in Model Railroader about Oct 1983 on how to make it look even closer. These cabs were steel not wood. The most glaring difference is the steps whcih on the Athearn model are recessed into the end walkways. Decals are not readily available for this caboose and none of the commercial sets for SRY cabs are corrrect. They used the same letters as on the diesels not the Roman style letters. I am in the process of working up a decal set based on SRHA archival material and hope we can get Microscale to do a set. The first bay window cab was made at Hayne Shops in July 1941. Southern also had a lot of wooden center cupola cabs too and Funaro & Camerlango offer 2 versions of it. They are in the Walthers catalog. These had the Roman style lettering. The Moloco transfer cab is pretty differnt from the Southern version--take a look at the photos on this site and you'll see what I mean. Also, Model Railroader wil be publishing an article on mine in April on how to build a SRY transfer cab. I also tell in it how to cobble up a decal set from those available. Good luck with it--Larry

-- Larry (ljpuckett@starpower.net), January 07, 2001.

There are also articles on Southern Ry bay window cabooses in PROTOTYPE MODELER magazine, December 1978, and DIESEL ERA magazine, May-June 1993(vol.4,no.3). The first has plans & photos, the second has a history of the whole class with photos and roster. Together they show the various lettering styles, explain yellow bays, etc. The transfer cabooses are shown in color in one of the H&M color books on cabooses, though I don't have a record of which (Southeastern?). Anybody help on that?

-- Tom Underwood (tlunder@attglobal.net), January 08, 2001.

Does anyone know of a good starting place for building an N scale SOU bay window caboose?

Mike

-- Mike Antkowiak (atirns@hotmail.com), April 12, 2001.


SInce you asked for a starting point and not an accurate model, I will suggest the Walthers N-scale cab. It is avaialble in Southern paint but needs some work to get closer to the SOuthern version, particularly modifying the steps would be a big help.

-- Larry (ljpuckett@starpower.net), August 07, 2001.

I have a question about the Walthers Bay Window Caboose. I could only get Red Caboose Knuckle Couplers to fit in the coupler mounts. Does Micro Trains make any kind of T-Shank Coupler Kit that will fit these cabooses. I tried the regular Micro Trains T-Shank Coupler but the "T" was way too wide for the coupler mount and when I tried to modify the size of the "T" on the end of the shank to make it fit, once I replaced the coupler mount covers, the couplers just fell completely apart inside the draft gear box. Does anybody ahve any suggestions as to what I could do so that I can use Micro Trains Couplers on the Walthers Caboose?

Jon "In all of your getting, get understanding." Proverbs 4:7

-- Jon Vanover (jon4jesus@charter.net), July 26, 2002.



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