Favorite Caboose, let’s see ‘em

Here are two of my favorites.  The first is a Penn central N9 transfer caboose that I built.  The other is a Penn Central N8A cabin that I kitbashed from an Atlas Northeastern caboose.

Tom

Your favorite caboose of course is the one you don't have...  I have plenty of northern New England examples, but lack a BAR. Have they been made?

Jan

I I believe this all metal Lionel Pennsy caboose is early Postwar.

My favorite Caboose is a 2000 cataloged MTH SF caboose pictured below.  What attracted me to this caboose is the trucks painted the same as the cboose;

A few years ago ai started to focus on NYC. These are few on the roster.

The most recent addition.

Pete

I have cabooses from many railroads but my favorite is this MTH Premier New York Central bobber #380. I generally run small engines (often steam switchers) and short trains on my 10’-by-5’ single-track railroad and this caboose looks best with them.

MELGAR

SCL/LN - CSX heritage caboose is my favorite. The quality is unbelievable. Nothing today comes close. Fantastic detail, smokes, amazing color scheme, just to name a few.

I thought about this a while trying to decide which of my PRR cabins I liked best.  I have N5, N5b, N5c, N6b, and N8 from all the manufacturers. I finally decided this was my favorite caboose:

This AtlasO has great detail and models the actual caboose.  I run it with my BN U30C #1776.

@NS1975 posted:

SCL/LN - CSX heritage caboose is my favorite. The quality is unbelievable. Nothing today comes close. Fantastic detail, smokes, amazing color scheme, just to name a few.

and, AND, a worker up the top at da window!!

GREAT PHOTOS ALL, clearly I have to broaden my horizons, sooo many classy gals

@Trainbros89 posted:

Cupola Norfolk & Western, Handrails and Smokestack and RED.. “OH MY!” What’s not to like there. Ty

I just went to the bobber caboose bash up and it’s really inspiring.. and yet, my bash ups need to look MORE like something created by an adult. I still, have skilz of a 5 1/5 year old. Ahh, get up try again.

y’all wave extreme modeling skilz. Salute

The three top shelves contain the 8 more colorful cabooses I made or painted in the first two months of 2021.  I had too many brown and black cabooses.  They are all my favorites as I say that for my latest car building or painting project!

Charlie

Many great cabooses here. I really like the N&W 2 rail hack. Been looking for a three rail one..

Here are a few faves from my collection...

Tom

Union RR

Here are couple rarely seen.

Pete

@Tom Densel posted:

Here are two of my favorites.  The first is a Penn central N9 transfer caboose that I built.

Tom

Tom, I was so inspired by your past transfer caboose posts, I decided to try building my own.  I decided on trying a Chessie.

This is the only one Chessie had.  I can only find three pics on the internet.

I'm making the hand rails now.  That part has been hard for me and has really slowed me down.

I have a number of side door cabooses, some waiting for restoration picked up in O scale shows, and a number of kit built and scratch built, very short and very long fantasy cabooses, and three railed brass side doors, combines, and drover's. My favorite two, Colorado Midland and Great Western (from FEC) side doors, l have no models of, although l have a GW under construction, on hold. (Brother Love displayed a number of the FEC side doors he built, on here....l drooled) l have pictured several of mine on here in the past.  I do like these types of cabooses.  Having recovered from the shock of actually being able to add photos to an old MoPac post, l am bravely going to try to add a previously posted photo of my bashes and builds, to this post .

The Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Railroad was a two-foot narrow-gauge railroad that ran in northern Maine until 1935.  The highest numbered caboose on the railroad was #558. I began to purchase On30 engines and rolling stock by Bachmann in anticipation of building a small narrow-gauge model railroad which hasn’t gotten started as yet. One of my best-liked On30 models is caboose #559, shown below. This ancient narrow-gauge wood caboose trundling through the countryside at 20 miles-per-hour behind a slow freight conjures up a train on which I would like to take a ride, and that’s why I like this caboose. Bachmann was clever to use a fictitious road number for this model although photographs show that the model #559, while not exact, looks a lot like the real #558.

MELGAR

Up in Maine, on two of the two foot remnants preserved, you can ride in two different of the sidedoors mentioned above.  The experience made me sorry l can't still ride in the combine coach caboose that once made the run between Pagosa Springs and Pagosa Junction on the Colorado narrow gauge.  Just a few of the reasons cabooses are my favorite railcar.

I love N5Cs in general but I really love this one. It matches my snowbird Lehigh Vally C628 perfectly.

This is my favorite caboose.  K-Line VIRGINIAN wood sided, with smoke.  Has electronics in it so I can pull it behind a command control locomotive.

Built from an old Kinsman S Scale kit:

Rusty

These two are not exactly my favorites but there is a uniqueness and/or story to them

First was walking through the local toy train shop from the O-gauge area back to the books, tools, and HO.  I came to a screeching stop and literally backed up two steps to verify I saw what I thought I saw.

I instinsely recognized the "Lightening bolt" and the "Radio equipped" phase as Erie. then also saw the Erie logo diamond.  But also saw the word "Southern" and the "X315" which is consistent Southern cab numbering.  Now the irony is according to a local expire many years ago Southern did actually sell off some of their cabooses to the Erie.

Then there is this Cab.

When it first came out the toy train shop in Charlotte would NOT stock it because was not prototypical.  Now the local shop I was buying at in Spencer  stocked them, but passed since not prototypical.  Later on after buying MTH's original NC OCS F-units thought this would look neat with these F's.  But there were none to be had!

Now after setting up for a train show had time to look around before opening time.  Saw this on the table ,was willing to pay a premium.  As I recall that tag on the front "said" 40 or 50 dollars.  Grab it, looked it over through the clear window, then set it down with the "end" up luckily.  There is another tag saying  20 or 25-dollars. Pulled out my wallet peeled out the  (that) amount and handed it to the guy!  As I walked away it looked like he was having some words with his that day helper.

Does look interesting right behind the F's and then with some NS passenger cars hooked on.

Ron

Ron, What a great story and fantastic find. And, if my vote counts, they look 'Marvelous' together.

This adds so much, and I think these stories are what makes this hobby a community of like-minded-souls. salute

More than just a caboose, or as the Burlington called them, "Way Cars", this is my custom built test car.

RAY

WOW, Impressive Ray. Well done, I thankee

LMS brake van:

I originally got it at one of the Strasburg shows (how in the merry heck did it find its way there?? ) to convert to a trolley work motor, probably a rail grinder but now like it so much that it will remain LMS.

@Dave_C posted:

Born and raised in Rutland county... I have got to start putting a couple of Rutland consists together...  Thanks!!!

Ok, I can't pick just one favorite, so I'll pretend I read "favorites".  This one was made by Malcolm (Brother Love)...

@Miggy posted:

Ron, What a great story and fantastic find. And, if my vote counts, they look 'Marvelous' together.

This adds so much, and I think these stories are what makes this hobby a community of like-minded-souls. salute

Back then was hoping to present the idea to Wick Moreman (then CEO of NS) to paint up a bay window in this MTH fantasy  version.  Mr. Moreman did visit the local toy train shop in Spencer, NC right across from the NCTM.  In fact on one of his visits he purchase the last set of the MTH original OCS F-units for the office.

Ron

Here's my favorite style of cabooses/cabeese (depending whichever term we use): the wooden center cupola caboose with the rooftop trim from the following railroads. (All of these images were pulled off the Internet by me, except for my picture of DT&I caboose #94 that I took with my iPhone. Hope this doesn't count as theft.)

1.

2.

    (You don't get to see this style of lettering; this was back from the early 30's!)

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

      (Of course, the Northeastern style is good, too.)

This is one of my favorites, as it’s fairly accurate. It’s a K-Line model. I also like the Lionel bay window, as it’s an accurate model of one of the Erie’s early ones, although Lionel’s model is about a scale foot or so too narrow. I hope one day to get a nice Lackawanna steel caboose.

My favorite caboose is the first one I ever acquired, a Lionel Lines #64173 N5c that came with my first train set, which was in the 1954 catalog. It gave me my interest in cabooses generally (my favorite car), and especially those of the PRR porthole N5c style. Although the PRR was in Chicago, I don't recall seeing them in service back in the day, and don't recall seeing one in the flesh until I went east on business circa 1990, and saw a couple on display at various locations. So here is my original caboose, along with several others I have picked up along the way.

I am a fan of the Williams N5C caboose offerings. I am NOT a fan of how they glue 12 little windows into the caboose Years later to Curl and drop out.

I can't choose one.  Here are my favorites.  

These are 2 of my own creations. The first two photos are of the first piece of rolling stock for our fictitious RR, the Great Northeastern RR.

The

The next 3 photos show the caboose for our Bungling Brother's Circus train.

Since the above photos were taken, I have added roof access ladders to the GNR caboose and marker lanterns to both models.

Have a bunch but Malcolm's craftsmanship work are special!

A four window Southern on the left and the N&W on the right.

The PC transfer.

And must include the N&W Dynamometer car albeit not a cab.

Ron

@Randy Harrison posted:

These are 2 of my own creations. The first two photos are of the first piece of rolling stock for our fictitious RR, the Great Northeastern RR.

The

The next 3 photos show the caboose for our Bungling Brother's Circus train.

Since the above photos were taken, I have added roof access ladders to the GNR caboose and marker lanterns to both models.

Are these old K-Line/Marx cabooses you repainted? 😃

@Andrew Steiner

Andrew:

They are all-plastic cabooses by Kusan. Kusan made a play set in the 1950's/60's called the "Kusan Canonball" that happened to be O gauge. My brother and I each had one when we were very young and found out that we could run the freight cars as part of a train on our Lionel Christmas layout. I still use them on our O gauge layout at the end of long freight trains so that the caboose will not weigh down the end of the train. I picked up several more on Ebay. They are all plastic including the trucks and  non-operating couplers. The car body cannot be removed from the chassis  Therefore, I cannot light them or glaze the windows. The roof access ladders are add-ons that I acquired on Ebay. These were first attempts at painting and are not perfect. But they work well for me.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

These two stand out for me.  The K-Line K613-8012 has smoke, but their smoke units had a reputation for overheating, so care must be taken.

The MTH 30-77263 Southern Heritage Bay has a silver roof, not white as in the MTH image, so is very striking in red and silver.

BN!

Here is one of my favorite cabooses. It is one of three brass Weaver Keyser cabooses that include two in DL&W paint in early and late schemes.     

Nice, Earl. I’m looking for a DL&W Keyser!

Several recent acquisitions:

@Norton posted:

A few years ago ai started to focus on NYC. These are few on the roster.

The most recent addition.

Pete

Pete,

I love your caboose collection. I'm a big NYC caboose fan myself.

Here is part of my NYC Caboose collection. Although some are not prototypical NYC designs, I'm very tolerant on my railroad.

Two of my favorite Lionel Bay Window Cabooses  and an MTH Extended Vision Caboose in Pacemaker colors.

These are 3 Kline Cabooses. The Extended Vision caboose in the foreground is one of my favorite. Behind it is a Bay Window caboose.

The K-Line BW and EV cabooses.

MTH-Railking Bobber Caboose

Here’s one of mine

The Great Northeastern Railway's own caboose....

One of my favorites! I saw these frequently in Northern California "pool" service on the friendly Southern Pacific.

As I mentioned above, I was looking for a Keyser built Lackawanna caboose. I finally got one, made by Malcolm, and it’s a beaut. Here it is in an earlier Lackawanna paint scheme than Earl’s.

As many of you know, I love cabooses (cabeese?) and have over 60 of them. Asking which is my favorite is like asking who is my favorite child or grandchild - impossible to answer. I guess my favs are those behind whatever train is currently on the layout.

That said, here are a couple sample caboose pics from my accumulation. It just so happens that these three are some of my custom creations.

.

A couple favorites. The Lackawanna 906, built by Malcolm Byrd and a Erie Dunmore caboose from 3rd Rail…

Tom

Nice, Krieglok, I had an HO brass Dunmore Erie, but I gave it to my brother, who has a really nice layout based on the Erie. Malcolm did a beautiful job with the Lackawanna.

I love the MA & PA

Homemade Transfer Caboose.

Made from a junk flat car and caboose cabin.  The first of many more homemade cabooses.

Charlie

@Artie-DL&W posted:

Nice, Krieglok, I had an HO brass Dunmore Erie, but I gave it to my brother, who has a really nice layout based on the Erie. Malcolm did a beautiful job with the Lackawanna.

Thanks Artie. I searched for a 3rd Rail O scale Erie Dunmore for quite a while. Then within a week, I was able to obtain two!
I had a HO Dunmore a long time ago. It seems any Erie Dunmore, no matter what scale, is almost impossible to get.

Yes, Malcolm does fabulous work. He also built some Erie Dunmores in the past.

Great cabooses everyone. Sharp looking Bobber and nice build on the transfer caboose!

Tom

Before I got the accurate Lackawanna caboose from Malcolm, I used an RMT version, which was nicely lettered. As Randy mentioned above, it’s hard to separate the body from the chassis, but, with a little work with an Exacto knife and prying around the doors, they can be opened. I added working battery powered markers to this one, with a small slide switch on the bottom.

This started life as an undecorated Weaver Northeastern style caboose somewhat resembling a Pennsy N5.  Weirton Steel acquired one of these for its scrap value but ended up putting it into service at the rear of slag trains headed to Standard Slag.  I covered over 2 of the 4 windows on each side, applied home-made decals, and weathered the heck out of it.

George

From the northeast .......

Some favorites:

I like the Extended Vision Cabooses and was happy to see some made in New York Central livery. The first photo is a Lionel model, the second photo is a K-Line model.

My Bay Window.

As several have noted, I can't decide so here are three tied in the top tiers:

MTH 20-91261

Atlas 6653-1

MTH 20-91130 (like at the Virginia Museum of Transportation)

-

In keeping with the prototype, my railroad no longer uses cabooses...

I believe the correct name is “CabinCars” and I don’t really care for them very much there fore I only have a couple to share with you great folks here on the fabulous forum.

I did my most favorite caboose earlier, one from the 1990s.

But I model the late 40s, so I looked at my PRR cabins from that era and decided this Lionel N5b was the best.  Nicely detailed and great paint work. Plus, this version of the N5 is just neat.

Now, I need to paint the handrails either black or a color to match the car to make it era specific (yellow handrails did not come about until the early 50s).

Last one that I built:

.My scratch built N5c and wartime emergency NX23. Both 1/29th scale.

Speaking of Pennsy N5 "cabin cars", here are two postwar examples:

The current Lionel catalog, posted on the net. (Gotta get a hard copy), is my favorite of all time, for it offers not only the Great Western #90, but a caboose for it, although l don't think the GW owned that style. (0f the ten GW cabs pictured in  a couple of publications, the FEC's were two of seven GW sidedoors, and the other three look like Burlington nondoors, and the closest to the Lionel version)  They had two of the ex-FEC side doors that Brother Love crafted,, and those prototypes were sold to assorted short lines besides the GW.  Have seen those FEC's in HO brass, but not 0.??  That not yet sold Lionel caboose just became my favorite Lionel caboose, and might be my only Lionel caboose, as the only MTH caboose l have is a bashed factory sidedoor.

Another Caboose I forgot about! A Cambria and Indiana caboose, equipped with air horns for long shoving moves. Detailed and painted by me…

Tom

That Cambria & Indiana is nice, Tom.

One of my favorites

Another of my Homemade cabooses, a Bobber made from a junker Lionel SP style caboose.  My favorites shift by the day and are usually the one I am running now.

Here is my Bobber in Yellow and the Lionel 8087 Bobber caboose, I like my new one better and now I have another Bobber caboose to go behind my Lionel General 4-4-0 engines

This one was hard to find I love the MA&PA

One of my favorites

Here is an old one...a Marx 6" , short wheelbase NYC caboose from Marx's first years (1935) as a train producer separate from the Gerard Model Works of Erie, Pa

Don

Two of my favorites, an MTH Monongahela #64 and my Right of Way C&O Smoking Caboose #909735. Great models.

Fairly Scarce NS caboose with smoke unit.

@PRRK4s posted:

.My scratch built N5c and wartime emergency NX23. Both 1/29th scale.

That NX23 is great.  Some of these lasted a long time and I always thought one would be neat to have.  Beautiful work.

Thanks, Ron.  That NX23 in large scale was actually a pleasure to build. Trying to figure out different techniques to get what was needed seem to flow easily as well. Here is a page that documents the build. I think its one of my best and cleanest builds ever.  http://www.prrmodels.com/NX23index.html   ......Gary   

One of my best looking homemade painting of a SP style caboose and another great use of my set of Rio Grande decals

More favorites to come!

Charlie

PRRK4s   Gary

Thanks for posting your great model of the  XN23 cabin car.  I was not aware they ever existed. I enjoyed your link to the building of it.  Great job.  I liked your review of the NX23s history as well.

You are a professional modeler.

Charlie

Here are some of my favorite cabeese.

My dad helped take care of this caboose when the Austin Model Train Club owned it. My parents were married on the caboose. My dad took my older sister's picture on it shortly before the club sold it to the City of Coupland, TX for their depot museum.

MKT freight headed south through Austin on the Missouri Pacific.

Southern Pacific freight on Llano Branch at McNeil headed east to Austin.

Rear brakeman waving to us from an eastbound Mopac freight at McNeil, TX.

My Christmas present in 1958 was a Lionel #6557 Smoking Caboose.

Sometime before we knew that these things would be better off left alone, I repainted and  it into the livery of my favorite railroad.

It's still one of my favorite Cabooses!

My favorite caboose.

Another one of my teenage repaints from the 1960's. I pretended my Berkshire was a Mohawk and I had a few 6464-125 Pacemaker Box Cars so I needed to paint this caboose. Didn't quite know what I was doing, but hey.......

I think you did a nice job on the NYC cabooses, Skip!

I have always been a fan of the NE style caboose.

Here are a few of my favorites

Bing

Fandor

Ives

KBN

New Marx - Prototype Side door

Thomas Industries

I really liked this MTH N5c Union Pacific yellow and red caboose, picture from Internet.

Here is my Lionel 9168 N5c Union Pacific caboose shell I had and added a base, trucks and made a homemade pickup for the lights.

So I decided to make a more colorful one.  Here is my Lionel N5c Union Pacific Caboose shell and I made a base and added a homemade pickup for the light.  Then it was a mostly a paint and decal job.  Now that is Colorful and really an eye catcher!  Probably my favorite homemade caboose and I have made 6 of them this year.

Favorite UP caboose to go with my  Homemade UP Vanderbilt coat tender.  I got good use from that small set of UP decals.

Lets keep them favorite cabooses coming.

Charlie

NYC Big 4 caboose, courtesy of caboose builder extraordinaire, Malcolm Byrd, aka Brother_Love.

Some of my favorite American Flyer prewar cabooses

c. 1916-1917 using a boxcar body, no doors, but cupola on the roof.  5.5 inches long

c. 1918, again uses a boxcar body (note lack of vestibules), but now lithographed for a caboose.  This was American Flyer's first 8 wheel caboose and first 6.5 inch long caboose.

c. early 1928, this was American Flyer's first enamel painted caboose and the version below has very detailed handrails, which are extremely difficult to find (I have only heard of or seen less than 10 of these).  This was also American Flyer's first 9.5 inch caboose.

NWL

I want to thank everyone for all the Likes on my first post on this thread, but I have a confession to make the photos I posted are only about the half  Cabin Cars I have that I don't really like cabooses. I wish I had more photos to share but sadly I do not.Everybody have a wonderful and Safe weekend.