Can anybody give me some prototype information about the Key and Sunset models of an ATSF caboose, with no cupola but two open-air seats facing forward on the roof? When were they in common use, what types of trains were they used on, what road numbers they had . . . that sort of stuff?
IIRc these were built during the WWII shortages. I don't know what the story is on the domeless "dome" seating.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Seem to recall seeing a picture of one once, darnest thing I ever saw!!
think it had a bench seat bolted to the roof lol
If it was, in fact, a wartime modification it was probably for soldiers to sit and watch for saboteurs during a sensitive equipment or unit movement.
Wouldn't be a very comfortable place to sit during the Wintertime.
cacoleWouldn't be a very comfortable place to sit during the Wintertime.
Or in a thunderstorm...
Gidday, apparently 123 were built, here's a link that might help.....http://www.sunshinekits.com/sunimages/sunw2.pdf
Bracing!!!!
Cheers, the Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I can't give you the full story, but here's some info from Caboose Cars of the Santa Fe Railway, by Frank M. Ellington, Railroad Car Press, 219 South Walnut, Colfax, IA, 50054, published 1977:
The book refers to them as transfer cabooses. There are a few photos, plus drawings. No. 955 is pictured with caption info that describes its construction, but has no info as to date, location, or assignments. No. 982 is pictured at Hutchinson, KS ca. 1950; No. 791 is pictured in a couple views at Los Angeles in 1953; and a car with an out-of-focus number is shown in a color photo taken at Albuquerque in December of 1963.
I don't know if it's relevant, but two of these cars are shown in close proximity to stock cars.
Tom
P.S.: Thanks, Mr. Bruin. You posted yours while I was composing mine. More pieces of the puzzle.
And I thought that my two-level 'pigs and sheep' brake van was cruel and unusual punishment for the rear-end crew.
Note the location of the seats relative to the smoke jack. Must have been real fun when the wind was right.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
You guys are GREAT. This particular model is a truss-rod car without the deep side sill. Obviously a rebuild of something old.
All of the photos I mentioned above, show cars having truss rods. The caption for 955 says it has "steel center sill 'I' beams, as modernized in the distant past, but presence of the six truss rods reveal its antiquity for the railroad scene of the 1940's".
The book has photos of cars without the rooftop benches too. Those photos and diagrams show a deep fishbelly side sill. I don't know whether these distinctions were consistent through the entire 123 cars.
Don't think it would have been much fun even in nice weather - between the cinders blowing back from the locomotive and all the junk kicked up by the train.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I suspect that's why they were listed as Transfer cabooses. Cinders wouldn't be a factor in oil burning areas, but all those other problems would have made for a terrible situation on the main line. Transfer cabooses would normally have been used on relatively low speed movements.