Well my not so little red little red caboose has arrived!!
Not bad for $15 bucks eh? (Especially with two flyer gondolas thrown, even if they a little beat up.)
And look- it has cupola windows an imaginary tinplate man could actually look out of!!
So it looks I have some learning to do on how to clean up this critter. Any constructive advice will be appreciated.
As for comparison to the 817, surprisingly the overall height is about the same but the main roof line is lower, allowing for the more proportional cupola.
Body width is a little thinner than the Lionel/mth cars, but how often do you look straight down on them anyway?
As to changing the couplers, I am having second thoughts now that I see the construction. The river that holds the coupler shank on also holds trim pieces on as well.
As another question to the tinplate crowd, since there is already an adapter for latch or box couplers to lobster claw, is there also a premade adapter from latch coupler to slot style coupler? If not, the easiest fix might be to solder an extension onto an existing adapter and bend it down to catch the slot on the flyer end.
Anyway, I need to clean up the new caboose, I might even consider a paint project to make it shinier. Let me know what you guys think.
JHZ563
