SC-1's Caboose

A little research suggests that 35799 started its life with the Reading and then came to the D&H right around when Conrail was formed. The Atlas wide vision caboose is a good match for the Reading prototype and it was available in D&H paint - great news for anyone using the caboose in the pre-guilford era. It looks like when Guilford took over the D&H, they welded over some windows and painted it orange and thats how it is today.

 Gotten Rusty in the 10 years since the last shot -- on the Troy I.T in 2011

 Prototype in 1999

 

Working from photos, I determined that all the windows needed updating. On the sides of the caboose, I cut out the windows that are welded over and moved them to the location of uncovered windows. I filled in the middle windows with styrene, and then using a drill-press cut new, smaller windows that I squared up using a file. On the ends of the car, window gaskets shaved off and covered over using thin paper to represent the sheet steel. The paper was glued on using thin CA. The windows on the ends of the cupola don't match the prototype but I left them alone. On the sides, I glued 1x4 material over the top of the window opening to represent work on the prototype.

Stainless caboose steps from Plano metal products were installed over the original plastic ones - these are easy, cheap and really make the model look a lot finer than it is.

I sprayed the model orange with Tamya paint -- something I wouldn't likely use in the future, but it came out OK.

The lettering on the side of the caboose seems to match D&H lettering and I used Highball Graphics F-118 for decals. On the ends, the lettering looked more Guildford-esk - but they are so small, I stuck with the D&H lettering.

 

William Gill