C&NW Caboose coloring

[Blind Bruce]

What style and color were the cabooses in the 1940 to 1950 era?

[hawghead1]

Caboose red or tuscan.

[Sperandeo]

Hi Bruce,

The North Western had wooden cabooses in both cupola and bay-window styles. Generally they were freight car red in the 1940s. The Walthers "4-window" HO caboose is actually a model of a CB&Q car but it is similar to the C&NW cupola cabooses. I don't know of a model of a bay-window caboose that would be very close.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

[wjstix]

Ya about the closest model to a CNW/Omaha bay window caboose would be the American Models M-St.L caboose craftsman kit....

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/152-867

Although apparently Mullet River Model Works is mulling over doing a CNW wood bay window kit, no pic on their website yet so I assume it's still in the future.

[VAPEURCHAPELON]

Please let me ask a question, too. I have such a WALTHERS 4-window round roof cupola caboose. It has fairly nice wood beam trucks but these don't have brake shoes. When I see wood beam caboose trucks from OVERLAND - especially on their C&NW cabooses - then there are brake shoes, at least on the outer sides. So should the WLATHERS trucks have brake shoes, too? Or where there trucks without them on the outer sides?

Thanks for your help.

[Sperandeo]

Hello M. Chapelon,

The prototype of that Walthers caboose was a Chicago, Burlington & Quincy way car (caboose) that rode on wood-beam trucks with drop equalizers. The truck is basically correct, but it should have clasp brakes, meaning that yes, there should be outboard brake beams, hangers, and brake shoes on both ends of each truck. The same is true of the same type of truck used on the Walthers Union Pacific class CA-1 caboose, although that model is currently out of production.

Interestingly, these trucks were known as "Q" trucks on the UP, because the design was borrowed from the CB&Q. The UP liked them so much that it used them on its first class of steel cabooses, the CA-3s of 1941. And that brings us to where you can get plastic HO scale Q trucks with the outboard brake shoes: Marklin's HO UP caboose has them, and I presume that they would be available as replacement parts. You'd have to modify the truck bolsters to use them on the Walthers cars, and change the wheelsets for two-rail operation. You can see how I did that in my article on adding underbody details to the Marklin caboose in the August 2005 MR, page 76.

However, I suspect that these trucks might not clear the steps on the Walthers cars. It looks as though close clearances might have been one reason the outboard brakes were omitted from the Walthers trucks in the first place.

Merry Christmas,

Andy

[VAPEURCHAPELON]

Andy,

have many thanks. This is great information. Yes I did find your great article on UP CA-3 cabooses and saved it that time. But since a few weeks I have such a nice TRIX CA-3, which I will upgrade as per the instructions in your article. I have to see where I have it...

But my C&NW caboose is the first project, I did a lot of work to it, new roof, wood roof walk, coupler lift bars, air hoses, brake rodding, and more. During Christmas I want to get this one complete.

Thanks again and Merry Christmas

[dknelson]

We are fortunate that the government-funded depression era photographer Jack Delano 1) used excellent color film, and 2) concentrated on the Chicago & North Western Railway for many of his finest photographs.  He took this stunning image of a C&NW caboose as a 4x5 Kodachrome transparency in 1943

The picture appears on many websites since it is public domain but I got it here

http://www.shorpy.com/node/526

And there are other Jack Delano color photographs

http://www.shorpy.com/jack-delano-photos

While the entire Shorpy site is very interesting

http://www.shorpy.com/

Dave Nelson