I like that drover caboose lurking in the second row right. Pollution what pollution.

Sharp cars, Howard! I really like the weathering too.

Hi Howard,

Very nice models. Great job noticing the differences and modeling them accurately.

Mike

I ran across this photo a few years ago and ended up scratch building the two cars in the foreground.

At first glance they look the same, but there are many differences. Grab Iron, Brake beams, Fascia are just a few of the areas. Both ares were built prior to 1900 when the C&A started listing cars in the ORER

Attached is a photo of my last test builds prior to building my contest models

Download Attachment: C&A.jpg
60.14 KB

Great photo find Dave!

I like all of the chalk markings on the sides of the cars in the foreground.

That's a little detail you hardly ever see modeled.

Greg Shinnie

If you look at the kit of the USMRR "Conductors Car", it has a similar sort of box on the roof. These were for the installation of lanterns as marker lights. Some of this type of "House car" caboose, had roof hatches, so that the brakeman could access the roof without having to go out the side door, and climb up the side ladder while the train was in motion. It also allowed the crew to both check on, and replace the lantern as necessary, while the train was in motion.

Horse

I love this shorpy site. If you ever get a chance to come to Ft.Wayne for the Historical Railroad festivalte that they have at the old PRR station each February, you should come and try to make it once in your lifetime. Yesterday I drug my wife in there. They have different RR exhibits from people around the area. This year it was the Wabash Railroad theme but they had other railroads also. There was a 1/8th scale PRR live steamer on exhibit. There was a guy that had a display of pocket watches. Which my wife thought was cool. There was a standard wall clock display. Wall clocks that the RR employees would set their personal watches too. I though that's was neat. There was Larry and Pete my buddies that had Pictures and Larry had his display of telegraph keys. He was employed by the Wabash Railroad as a Station clerk starting in the 50s. He was telling us all about how he telegraphed up and down the line from Detroit Michigan to St. Louis. I was looking at some of his pictures, I asked him if I could get a copy of one of him setting at table at Detroit. He flipped be a CD disk and said, "It should be on here. I have been trying to get rid of these disks for a while! He said go home and put it on your PC". I said, "Wow, thank you" There was the N scale Northern Indiana N scalers with a pretty good size layout. There was a G scaler loop of track. and the Lionel guys with w good size loop, running at the famous Lionel speed. Then just all of the pictures. They were cool to look at. Especially seeing the buildings that are still standing today and you see them in pictures from 1908. That's cool. Well sorry for my hijacking of the thread, Kevin

I agree with Dave, I would hazard a guess that the boxes on the caboose roofs are to hold oil marker lanterns.

Greg Rich

I suspect they're some form of marker lights, set up so they can be rotated to show different colored lenses

dave

The blocks on the roofs of the cabooses are so haphazard that I'd guess they're shop tools, jigs, staging supports or the like.

Does anyone know what those things are that are on the cupola and by the roof walk on the caboose on the right side of the picture? They looked grooved in the middle to hold something.

Dave, I can see the allure of modeling the earlier eras of railroading.

Easy, Bruce, easy! Step away from the image, and keep your hands where we can see them. It's gonna be OK.

You have nothing to worry about here, everything will be just... MEDIC!! [:-bigmouth]

Notice that there is no roofing paper, tin, tar, etc. on the roof, either!

Pete

in Michigan

Oh my, I see evidence of nail heads in the roof in the immediate foreground.[:-shake]

If you look real close, you'll see that 205 has no stack, also looks like there is no coal in the bunker. Given how clean it looks, I wonder if it's a new engine. I think I've seen a picture once that showed a new engine being transported without it's stack. I thought the headlights were left off for transport though. Pretty neat picture. Would love to spend some time wondering about that round house.

Bill