Tail End Tuesday

Hello TETers.  Here is a tail end post of a tail end for this Tail End Tuesday.  I hope everyone is doing well on this Tuesday end of the day.

Here is my contribution.  We all know the railroads did not really have a front end or rear end for their freight cars.  They were rarely, if ever, turned.  This goes for the caboose too.  With few exceptions, they did not care which end the caboose was facing.

However, all cars have an "A" end and a "B" end.  For freight cars, the "B" end was where the brake wheel was.  A caboose had brake wheels on both ends, so which one was the "B" end (or for today the tail end)?  This is the "B" end of this PRR N8 cabin.

How do I know this is the tail end?  On freight cars the pointed end of the brake cylinder points to the 'B' end.  To standardize terminology, for a caboose the pointed end will point to the 'B' end of the caboose.  That makes the other end the 'A' end.

Now you know the answer to the question you never asked.

Tail-End Tuesday - March 12, 2024

New Haven C-681 is an Atlas O model of an NE-6 caboose built by International Car Company in 1950. It was part of the last purchase of cabooses made by the New Haven Railroad. This model (Item 6671, MSRP $69.95) was produced from the first run in April 2003. It has friction bearing caboose trucks, a die-cast chassis, and full underbody details.

MELGAR

Lionel 1990s aluminum set

Have a good TET all, some observation ends

Railking - getting to the bottom of the…(insert cliche here)…barrel.

The rear of an REA delivery truck making its rounds in the City of Christopolis.

2 late night departures from Suburban Station Terryville on the Great Northeastern Railway.

Here’s my Tail End

HEY!  I recently found one of my "holy grail's" ; the Marx #5563 6 inch tinplate lithographed caboose in KCS livery.  This is one of the more scarce of the Marx 6 inch cars as noted by a collectors value some 5- 7 X any other caboose iaw my reference guides.  It goes with my KCS FM tinplate lithographed diesel and I have been looking for it for about 2 years and finally encountered one on e-bay and had quite an "auction" tussle to get it.  Anyway, here it is in honor of T.E.T.

My reference books give no dates of manufacture for this caboose however it is likely that those dates would match the dates for the matching #54 Marx KCS FM diesel.  These are 1956-1960 for the KCS A unit and 1957-1960 for the B unit.  The caboose has the plastic knuckle coupler which was introduced by Marx in 1953 so that lends support to those mid 50's to 1960 dates.

Here she is on the tail end (hey its T.E.T. right) of my KCS FM diesel unit. View from the rear

View of the entire consist A, B, and caboose .

Happy Tuesday !  Best Wishes

Don

@pennsyfan posted:

Lionel 1990s aluminum set

@pennsyfan,

Bob,

The two bridges in your photo remind me of the PRR's Dock Bridge across the Passaic River just north of Newark Penn Station. Is that what you were thinking when you built the layout?

MELGAR

Here's my rears for this fine Tuesday!

A very late arrival for this Tuesday Tail End train.  A $25 TCA Desert Division auction buy a few weeks back.

My tail end for this fine Tuesday

My 3 tail ends for this Tuesday

MTH

New York Central #23037 is an extended vision caboose by MTH Premier (20-91030) delivered in 2001 - shown in Bridgeport on my 12'-by-8' layout.

MELGAR

CN (VIA service) inspection car

Here's a Delaware & Hudson wood-sheathed caboose that I had custom-built by Forum member "Brother Love" back in 2014.  10 years later and it's still waiting its turn to be "3-rail scaled" and weathered!

Well my offering today is not all that unusual except I found this one to be unusual by condition.  In a very nice "crispy" box, the #6457 caboose was one of Lionel's premium offerings in the period 1949-1952.  IAW the reference material, when the caboose came in a box with 6457-7 on the inside flap (as this one did) it was part of set 2167WS from 1950.  This set was headed by the #681 steam turbine and the 2671W PRR 12 wheel tender...WOW!  The car is labeled "very difficult to find" and this was just luck for me.  I had one already but the condition of this one was just too good for me to not bring it home.  I don't know what this has been dong sitting in a box for nearly 75 years!

Here she is on her first run on my layout with a few contemporary pieces of rolling stock.  Illuminated and with under frame detail and automatic couplers on both ends (new magnetic type from 1948)

Here she is in a train the a PRR X2458 Auto Box (1946-1948), and a PRR 6452 gondola (with barrels) 1948-1949 and a (OH NO) MPC #8617 Nickel Plate 4-4-2 steamer.

a better look with some of her "old" friends.

Best Wishes

Don

Here's my rear for this fine Tuesday!   Rear end brakeman Cubby Hines rides the rear step of a B&O SW 9

Railking

Well T.E.T. fans, I am off to an early start today (for me)...with a pre-war beauty that I purchased recently at the "Train-a-Palooza" show in Grapevine, Tx.  This is the #817 tinplate caboose from 1926-1930 with Ni journal boxes and orange window inserts and the peacock body and cupola with the dark green roof.  Never illuminated although competitor Ives used lights.  It changed to Cu journal boxes in 1931,brass window inserts in 1932 and finally to variations of red body color from 1933-1942.  While I had several red variations before, I had never managed to acquire one of these early peacock versions.

I assembled a short train in her honor using some contemporary items, so here she is on the end of a short train with a #814 box car from 1926 and a # 262 locomotive from 1931-32.

So if you think about the dates, these cars and locomotives were the top end of Lionel's O gauge line from the end of the "Roaring 20's" through the "Crash" of '29 and the onset of the "Great Depression"  of which the worst year was 1932.  These were in many ways true "transition" pieces as the Lionel company went from the "top of the world" to near bankruptcy over the same period.  Wow!

Best wishes and best of thoughts for the upcoming Easter Holiday.

Don

Here's my rear for this fine Tuesday!

Photos and video for this Tail-End-Tuesday, March 26, 2024, show Conrail N20 extended vision caboose #22131 trailing a short freight train pulled by Conrail SW8 #8606 on my 10’-by-5’ layout. The caboose was built by International Car Company in 1970 for the Reading Railroad and was transferred to Conrail on April 1, 1976. Caboose model is Atlas O 6608 – October 2000 – MSRP $59.95.

MELGAR

The south end of a north bound NOS MTH Premier NH passenger consist…

Tail end of a working party

Tail end MTH Premier unit not too interested in showing it's backside .......? I guess if you are a PREMIER and not an RK You can do as you please !?! 

Look for the OPPORTUNITIES for EXCELLENCE this week engineers.

God Speed 

Put in a bid on a caboose on ebay this morning does that count?

Here’s one of my newest favorites:

Williams brass NYC caboose.

Here’s my tail end

My Tail End at the tail end of Tail End Tuesday.

Boy, I'm so busy on Tuesdays getting ready for my Civil Air Patrol meeting that I am always at the tail end on Tuesday for the Tail End Tuesday's tail end post.  Need to start earlier.

I really like MTH's PRR N6b cabins.  These model the rebuilt cabins with the narrow center cupula with sloping sides for tunnel clearance.  Some lasted until 1964.

My tail-ender for this Tuesday, April 2, 2024, is New York Central wood caboose #19654, a Railking model (30-7721) delivered in 1998 for MSRP $39.95, shown on my 10’-by-5’ layout. Although I have two newer MTH Premier NYC cabooses, this is the one that I put at the tail-end of an NYC freight train most often.

MELGAR

Hope all had a fine Easter, waiting on more high winds in upstate NY again on Tail End Tuesday.

My Tail Ends for this wet Tuesday.

Premier

Here's my rears for this fine and soggy ( here in Maryland )  Tuesday!   "A little something from Sunshine Farms."  

Colorful D&H Observation car (almost) disappears into a tunnel portal sans the tunnel in the mountains between Hendersonville & Brevard NC

Well here is my "Tail End" for today.  American Flyer (Chicago Flyer) set 401 red enameled cars of about 1939... still working at age 85.

Best Wishes

Don