Paul W. Beverung wrote:The Milw Rd desinged and built there cabooses in there own shops, so they were only on the Milw Rd. I think that C&NW used a comerical caboose but I'm not sure and don't know who made them.
Thanks!
If you're talking about the rib-side cabooses, like the ones Walthers is coming out with in HO, those were unique to the Milwaukee. The CNW - well, primarily subsidiary Omaha Road - used wood bay-window cabooses for many years, which I think were converted from older cupola cabooses??
However by the sixties both CNW and Milwaukee had some bay-window cabooses that were I believe built by International and were pretty similar to what many other railroads used. Walthers makes International cabooses in HO; the old Athearn bay-window caboose could work too.
Here's pictures of the caboose in question. I found them in a YouTube video.
That looks to be a fairly standard bay-window caboose, similar to the Walthers or Athearn ones I mentioned before. In better days it probably looked like this:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-7623
The Milwaukee Road-built ribside bay-window cabooses from c.1940 looked like this:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-7662
Although they later bought more standard International cabooses similar to the CNW ones:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/932-7632
(These are models so they're not necessarily exactly like the prototypes, but they're pretty close.)
Assuming the car was not renumbered at some point, 10946 is part of a group of 150 cars (series 10900 - 11049) ordered from Thrall in 1959 and 1960. It was rebuilt in 1981, and almost certainly wore the "flag" scheme after rebuilding.
Here's pics of other cars in the series from happier times courtesy of the CNWHS website:
10950 in 1970. This is probably pretty close to as-built appearance
11012 in 1980. A fresh coat of yellow just before the big rebuild program of 1981.
10948 in 1982. Note the changes from the rebuild process.
Oh, forgot to mention - these cars really aren't very close to the stock Athearn BW. There was a good article in the May 1988 issue of MR on how to kitbash CNW cars using the Athearn as a starting point.
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=5&YR=1988&output=3&sort=A
Fortunately the Milwaukee Road Historical Society has published books on all cabooses: wood, rib side, and steel. The Walthers model is almost a dead-on version of the Milwaukee Road's International-built bay window caboose. A few changes can make it nearly exact. They also had 100 Thrall cabooses with distinct rivet patterns visible -- Overland offered it in HO brass.
Dave Nelson
Walthers offers its bay window caboose in a yellow paint scheme as well as the traditional red
The red version has some detail issues. Back when they were red they had roof walks and ladders that extended to the roofs, while the Walthers model is of the modified version with roof walks removed and ladders shortened. Also the herald is not correctly placed for the CNW International cabooses, at least as far as I have been able to track.
It is however a very handsome model which is "good enough" for me and for many others.