Very nice. I've been thinking

Very nice. I've been thinking recently about what it would take to do up the interior of a caboose. Very timely! 

Are you going to do more after this one?

John

More to come

Hi John;

Yes, I have finished up 3 Caboose (Cabeese) with interiors. I am working on posting my progress here.

Bill Beverly

My second caboose project with interior

I have been working on cars that have interiors, specifically cabooses. A caboose is a good candidate to have an interior. They were used in the early part of the last century as a mobile office. They had closets, desks, a stove for heat and a coffee pot. Some had sleeping bunks and a cupola for a better view of the train.

Between 1912 and 1923, the D&RG(W) Railroad rebuilt five 1880s style short cabooses in order to help maintain a small fleet of durable and up to date crummies. Eventually consisting of road numbers 0503, 0505, 0517, 0540, and 0574, these rebuilds were more or less new cars that utilized the hardware of the old cabooses. These cabooses are referred to as Class 5 by Dr. Robert Sloan in his book A Century Plus Ten of D&RGW Narrow Gauge Freight Cars 1871 to 1981. Favored by railroad crews, the car bodies were 25 foot in length and sported wider platforms than their sister long cabooses in use at that time.

This caboose was a little maddening to assemble because it had so many parts. The walls were assembled flat with interiors attached and painted before the caboose was assembled. The kit is produced by http://www.p-b-l.com and comes with all the pieces to build the interior. The scale is Sn3 (S scale 3 foot narrow gauge)

Star Brand paints were used to paint the exterior and interior. Microscope glass was used in the windows. The roof was designed to slip off (Shame to hide the interior)

Bill Beverly

Third caboose with interior

I have been working on cars that have interiors, specifically cabooses. A caboose is a good candidate to have an interior. They were used in the early part of the last century as a mobile office. They had closets, desks, a stove for heat and a coffee pot. Some had sleeping bunks and a cupola for a better view of the train.

A Short History By John Hugh Coker

The Short Cabeese were most often relegated to branch line service and short trips.. Perhaps this came about because of their diminutive size? Might be.. Maybe it was because they "looked right" behind the small 2-8-0 "C" class locos the branch lines favored.. (Many photos depicting the #361 in the "Black Canyon of the Gunnison" show her with a short caboose in tow..) But photos also reveal that at least one was used on the "Gunbarrel" between Poncha Springs and Alamosa, being pulled behind the likes of "480's" and "490's," all the way up into the fifties...

Although they were "Real Chummy" inside, they garnered much favor with the crews that worked and lived in them because they were easy to heat.. A real consideration given the elevations they were to be found traversing!

An interesting bit of trivia In the old times, an Engineer would be assigned to one particular locomotive. It was "his" to keep and care for, and this showed in how well kept these locomotives were, as can be seen by examining early photos. But this all ended with the advent such things as "reorganization" and "engine pools.."

Survivors include #0500 and #0501, on the Durango line today; #0524 and #0578 at the Colorado RR'd Museum in Golden; #0573 in Ogden Utah; and #0579 now at the C&TS RR'd.

This kit is still in production and offered by http://www.p-b-l.com/Rolling-Stock/R-11-1.html

Not as difficult to assemble as the 0505, but very still challenging. I am still touching up the details on this one and will add an extra figure. I kept the roof in 3 separate pieces, but they are so light that they seem to fall off when they run on the layout, so it normally runs as a convertible. The scale is Sn3 (S scale 3 foot narrow gauge)

I again used Star Brand paints for the exterior and interior and used the microscope slide cover glass for the windows. Real coal particles were added to the coal bin for the stove.

Bill Beverly

Sweet!

Those are very well done Bill. I like them a lot. Do you have any plans to light them up at all?

Those are all really cool!

Those are all really cool! Well done!

John

Have to agree. Very cool

Love these. Thanks for posting these.

Interior lights

Those are very well done Bill. I like them a lot. Do you have any plans to light them up at all?

Kevin Klettke CEO, Washington Northern Railroad

Hi Kevin;

I don't plan on putting lights in these Cabeese, but I have a few other Cabooses that I am working on that will not have interiors and I am planning on adding marker lights using the small Surface Mounted LEDs. I will need to add whippers on the truck wheels.

The above Cabooses have a lot of underbody detail (maybe I should add a picture of the underbody) that would make it hard to add the whippers to the trucks.

These Cabeese look nice but with all the underbody detail, they actually don't track very well. Sometimes being too prototypical does not scale very well, and the trucks get hung up on details.

Thanks for looking.

Bill Beverly

Two Thumbs Up!

Cause, that's all I have!

Nice looking models there!

George

Wow!

I really like the level of detail in those interiors! Keep up the good work! 

Great cabeese!

Bill, that's a triple-run...really nice workmanship. S scale is a great balance for these cars, smaller than O but big enough to pack in the detail. Each caboose has its own personality.