Over the weekend, I used information from a video on MR Video Plus where Cody Grivno "modernized" one of the MR&T cabooses by removing the roof walk and end ladders, then filling the holes with styrene rod. Well, the last order of ICC cabooses the the D&RGW received did not have the roof walks, and I had two of them numbered from that series from Athearn. So, I fixed them! Now I have to put a grab iron ladder up the sides. Here are some photos of what I did.
By way of background, from what I recall, the Athearn wide vision cabooses are based on Rock Island wide vision cabooses - the following text is from a referance at Railcarphotos.com: " RI series 17000-17061 built by Morrison-International, Lot ____, ___-58 to ___-64. New carbody built on steel underframes salvaged from wood carbody cabs, so they are shorter in length than typical International wide-vision cabs" http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=71033 Here is a photo from rr-fallenflags of the last order of D&RGW wide vision cabooses:
Thanks, Jim. I know they're a little shorter than the Atlas ICC cars, but they fill a gap, and they're cheaper than the Shapeways versions of these cars. This is a nice photo BTW.
Nice work with the dowels. When I remove running boards and ladders from my cabooses??? Cabeeses??? I usually just use some putty. I will have to try your way next time! JMS
I got the idea from a Cody Grivno MR Video Plus video. On the first two, I used 1/16 styrene rod for the ladder holes, but found it too narrow, so I bored them out to 1/8" and used the same styrene rod all around.
I just became aware of the Shapeways D&RGW cabooses when a guy on Atlas Rescue Forums posted photo's. Nice that there is a way to get a correct D&RGW wide vision caboose without brass; I've always wanted correct wide vision D&RGW cabooses very much but so far just have a few of the Atlas wide visions as "stand-in's". The Atlas could be modified by raising the cupola and changing the windows - for the first 15 purchased in the 1960's. I'm not sure about the roof. A fellow D&RGW modeler is painting an unpainted brass D&RGW 01400 series welded caboose I bought off the Yahoo Groups email list some years back and it has sat unpainted for a long time. I chose the black with yellow "Radio Equipped" yellow stripes version as I already have a single tripe, 4 stripe and two solid orange. There is a photo of an in-progress shot in the Sunday Photo fun topic here: http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/4601/sunday-photo-fun-4-2016
I too like Pauls way of filling in the holes,as you get to cut and sand on similar materials, I think you get a good result from it. I was shown some time back to use a small empty paint bottle with some MEK, and put scrap Styrene in it, to make a plastic filler past. Man those shapeways are pricey aren't they? Nice job Paul!!
Here's what one of the first order of ten ICC cabooses looked like. This is 01508 stored on a spur track near the Spanish Fork High School in the late 1990s It, along with two SP bay window cabooses was sold to a farmer in Salem, Utah who used them for storage. The second photo shows what it look like today, at a Caboose Hotel at the Big Rock Candy Mountain....
I like what you did with the Athearn cabooses, Paul. It's a good idea to use styrene plugs to fill in the roofwalk holes, but it's definitely not easy shaping the plugs to fit the roof. Congratulations on a job well done!
Thanks, Ryan. I got the idea from a Cody Grivno video on MRVP (Model Railroad Video Plus). It really changes the appearance of the caboose.
This is the latest caboose to arrive at my house! These are photos of the D&RGW 01400 series wood sash caboose. This is a 3D printed model, by Shapeways. This is actually two peices, the body and the under frame. This is a friends caboose, I just ordered it for him. Still have to give it a soak in Bestine and then he will paint it in the black scheme with two yellow stripes signifying a radio equipped caboose.
It might have been Andy Rooney said, a train with no caboose was like a sentence with no period at the end.
Well, I got the other version of the D&RGW 01400 series caboose. This is 3D printed in Frosted Ultra Detail or FUD. I like this material better than the White Flexible that the wood shah one is made of. I need to soak them in BESTINE and clean them up for painting...
Here's a work in progress. It's a MDC/Roundhouse kit that's custom painted. Just need to finish it up.
The revised gasket seal windows on the Shapeways 3-window caboose look overly large to me. The black caboose in the ARF Sunday Photo Fun recently painted for me for comparison: http://atlasrescueforum.proboards.com/thread/4673/sunday-photo-fun-8-2016?page=1 The wood sash 3-window caboose looks great - IIRC, the wood sashes were replace in the 1960's; I think it was only run with wood sashes for about 10 or so years so time frame is part of the story there. The MDC 3-window caboose is about the closest stand-in available in plastic for until Shapeways has offered their various versions. The worst thing are the side windows. The cupola is very close to the D&RGW shop build 3-window caboose but the sides would look best if they were covered and new windows cut-out. The dimensions of the body of the caboose are off from my brass models (wider IIRC) etc. but visually it look like a good stand-in, especially if the side windows could be revised and of course end-cages built. BTW. further down in the Sunday Photo Fun is a Cotton Belt caboose completed by fr8kar. He has a wide-vision D&RGW caboose from Shapeways he is working on too.
Yes, the fellow who designed these said the window looked a little big. I'll see what I can do to shrink them...
