I am in need of help from my forum friends again. I am looking to increase my quantity and selection of caboose to be a good representation of BN mainline operations from merger to 1980. What I have is the following (all wide vision): 2 former NP renumbered to BN, 1 SP&S renumbered to BN, a "Q" waycar (NE13 with bettendorf trucks per prototype), 1 BN painted caboose, and 1 GN renumbered to BN. What other caboose (4 or 5) would be proper to get a good mainline mix? Thank you as usual for any assistance that can be provided.
I think it also depends on a where. There's a tendency for "old" cabeese to stay on their old lines. That said, it's remarkable how many times I see in pictures BN painted ex-Q NE-12's in the Pacific Northwest.
And it's not clear to me from your list exactly what you have.
So I will explain my approach:
AT MINIMUM, I wanted a BN painted "typical" pre-merger caboose for each line. They had to be steel, 'cause I don't see old woodies doing much traveling. So I DID get a brass NE-12 painted in BN. And I've got several GN X-1 to X-30, one of which I can paint BN. And I've got a tall-cupola NP/SP&S caboose I can do BN. All brass, of course, because no one make plastic ones. EXCEPT there's a Bachmann (?) that's pretty crude, but usable:
Above is not mine, incidentally. I think my selection above represents each road's most obviously-characteristic steel caboose. From before the merger. If you know cabeese and you see any of the above, you KNOW what railroad bought them.
The second part of my "plan" is to have one each of the predecessor roads' International style cabeese in their original scheme, but BN patched. The Atlas caboose can handle that nicely. In fact, the NP non-wide vision car is actually fairly accurate. The others, not so much. Which can also lead down the brass path, but not at my house.
So, that's what I'll call The Minimum. Cabeese being what they are, I've got a goodly number of other BN cars, anyway.
Ed
BN did have some freight cars in their original pre-merger scheme into the early 1990's, but by 1980 I beleive all or virtually all engines and cabooses would have been repainted into BN paint, most of them would have been repainted by say 1975.
If you're adding 5 cabooses to a 1980 BN layout, I would advise you to add maybe 3-4 more BN extended vision cabooses, and 1 or 2 pre-merger cabooses but in full BN decoration. (You could maybe add a BN transfer caboose of some sort I guess.)
BN did own two bay window cabooses, ex-GN cars which were used only in northeast Minnesota on taconite trains. The cupolas on their regular cabooses wouldn't fit under the taconite loader for unit train service.
wjstix BN did have some freight cars in their original pre-merger scheme into the early 1990's, but by 1980 I beleive all or virtually all engines and cabooses would have been repainted into BN paint, most of them would have been repainted by say 1975. If you're adding 5 cabooses to a 1980 BN layout, I would advise you to add maybe 3-4 more BN extended vision cabooses, and 1 or 2 pre-merger cabooses but in full BN decoration. (You could maybe add a BN transfer caboose of some sort I guess.)
Note that the OP said "...from merger to 1980." Not "1980".
BN owned 41 bay window cabeese, including the two just mentioned. All merger partners had them, except the C&S.
7j43k And it's not clear to me from your list exactly what you have.
That list is the caboose I have or, in the case of the second NP caboose, on order.
wjstix BN did have some freight cars in their original pre-merger scheme into the early 1990's, but by 1980 I beleive all or virtually all engines and cabooses would have been repainted into BN paint, most of them would have been repainted by say 1975.
I have seen quite a few pictures that show caboose still in original schemes (with BN renumbering) to 1979. As I model the range I figured I would run a mix of all of them.
wjstix I would advise you to add maybe 3-4 more BN extended vision cabooses, and 1 or 2 pre-merger cabooses but in full BN decoration.
I would advise you to add maybe 3-4 more BN extended vision cabooses, and 1 or 2 pre-merger cabooses but in full BN decoration.
I was already figuring that I would need to get more BN-marked cabooses and I have BN caboose decal sheets for renumbering.
I figure for the BN new caboose: 1 from the 10520-10594 (New 70), 2 from the CS lettered BN caboose series (new 72), Those would cover the new BN caboose that I don't already have. Given that this is ex-NP, probably the other would be BN 10041 (ex NP 10410). All the other caboose aren't mainline or didn't run in the area I model.