One of the most mis-marketed models was the Industrial Rail Santa Fe Caboose from around the turn of the century. Equipped with O27 trucks and offered to the traditional O crowd, it was one like a small kid wearing oversized gym shoes. What were they thinking???
The redeeming grace was, it was practically perfect S Scale, when I measured it, it's primary dimensions were only a scale inch or so off.
I converted one to S Hirail for a friend of mine way back using SHS caboose trucks and couplers. I removed the O27 trucks on my car, then my attention got diverted and the car languished in storage up on the ductwork above the layout for over a decade.
Something whispered in my ear that I should revisit this project, so over the past few weekends, I leisurely reworked the frame so I could mount AM caboose trucks and notched the end beams for Kadee couplers. Here's the result:
It still could use some more work, but for now, I'm happy just getting it road worthy.
It's a fair, low resolution S scale model, but it does compare rather well overall to a more detailed model, in this case a Southwind Models brass caboose.
The most obvious flaw is the cupola windows. I know of folks who have rebuilt the cupola ends and have heard of someone mounting a Flyer streamlined cupola to make a Wabash caboose. I'll probably take another decade thinking about reworking the cupola.
Rusty
