Southern Ry Transfer Caboose in N-scale

[Waldbahner]

Hello railroad modelers,

at the moment, I'm out of ideas and energy to work on my large scale Shay. I'm also waiting for ordered parts and some troubles will need solutions. So I decided to to some thing different to relax.

I started a small shelf switching layout in N scale. This layout will rest on a book shelf in the living room and it's a lot of fun to shunt railcars from the yard to the industries. The theme of "Raccoon City Yard" is a fictitiously very short branchline of the Southern Railway in 1970. The roster includes two diesel engines (GP18 and GP38) and 16 mixed freight cars. But each loco will also need her own caboose. The first one was a rebuild side bay from ModelPower. For the second caboose, I liked to buid one of the Southerns transfer caboose.

So I started with an old flatcar from Roco, found in my scrap box. There were also some MTL couplers and trucks in there so the base was there, as long as the prototype was also build on an old flatcar. But the car was 16mm to long. So i disassembled the car and cut the frame to the right length after removing the buffers and railing.



The superstructure was build from styrene. I spend several hours on research on plans and photos to get the right proportions and dimensions. Finally, the hood is little bit to tall but I can live with it. All parts have been drawn in CAD and I used my little CNC mill to cut them out of 1mm styrene sheets. Doors and windows are directly groved into the walls.

Note that the ladders below are also cnc milled out of 0.5mm styrene with 0.4mm width bars !!! Meanwhile, I primered the frame as the final color will be read and is difficult to paint on a black ground.



For the platforms on each end of the caboose, I used the original decking of the flatcar. I just used segments of the without nipples and holes. Now it was time for the first paint. The platforms has been dry brushed for a weathered look. After the hood was painted, I installed the windows glases and glued the hood on top of the frame.



Now I could start with all the hand rails and steps. After the good results on the ladders, I decided to mill them from styrene too. The dimensions are the same as on the ladders. The only disadvantage on this method is, that the rails will be square in cross section but etching from brass will result in the same. But it's hart to see on the final model as long as your nose will be in distance of one foot. After milling, the rails have been pre painted and glued in place wit ACC. At last I added MTL couplers, trucks, steps and decals to complete the model.



Now the caboose can be seen in daily service on my little layout. GP38 2815 just picked up some empty freight cars and will bring them to the main line interchange.



I hope you enjoied my report. Actually I'm working on the first factory building for a little paper mill. When you're interested, I'll post more of this project.

Cheers, Gerd

[jacq01]

   You realy are a man of extremes 

   When the shay is finished, you can run your n-scale layout on the cabin floor  .

  Jacq