A Publication of the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society
Copyright © 2003. All rights reserved, including reproduction in whole or in part in any form without written permission from the Erie Lackawanna Historical Society, Inc.
Greetings, and welcome to the first installment of a new series for the membership of the ELHS, "From The Workbench." In this newsletter I intend to present new modeling articles for each issue, as well as some tips and tricks to help you with your modeling efforts. I will also initiate a question and answer forum to help with your specific needs.
Bay-Window Caboose Conversion
By Jim Harr; ELHS #2934
Photos by the author, unless otherwise noted.
Our initial project presented this month will be a fairly easy conversion of the HO scale Athearn® bay-window caboose into a more accurate replica of the Erie Lackawanna car first produced in 1969 by the International Car Company.
C357 (Hornell NY - 10-8-69 - JR Quinn - La Rue collection)
Prototype History
By the mid 1960’s the Erie Lackawanna’s fleet of cabooses, all inherited from the pre-merger roads, had started to become a bit road-weary. Hoping to capitalize on the Erie’s success with its bay-window cabooses, the EL returned to International Car Company for an updated, more modern version. These 20 cars, numbered 351-370, were of all-welded construction, and had a more ‘streamlined’ look than the original Erie cars, due in part to that welded construction, as well as a shallower bay, near-flush mounted glazing, and a straight bottom sill. They were also the first cabooses delivered with roller-bearing trucks, Barber-Bettendorf swing-motion caboose trucks to be specific.
Originally delivered in the ‘Spartan (or ‘Radio’) Red’ paint scheme, many of them were eventually re-painted into the classy maroon and gray with yellow accents, and one caboose in particular, number 354, was painted into the red, white and blue bicentennial scheme to match the SD-45/SDP-45 pair of diesels also given that scheme.
In 1970, the railroad purchased its last 10 new cabooses, numbered 371-380. These were essentially the same on the exterior as the previous 20, except they lacked rooftop running boards and the ladders required to access them. From this article, you can model either style of car, although modeling the later version is more involved. We'll discuss modeling the differences later.
