Now I can add to that. While having a quick lunch I dug into my reference material and wow was there variation that I had not paid that close attention too. Take a close look at the photo. Besides going wild with the silver check the handrails. The first has red rails and the 2nd has black rails except on the cupola which are silver. I also found black roofs and silver with black walkways and rails and silver with red walkways and black handrails. And no rhyme or reason can be deduced from the photo locations since all the schemes could be found on Lines East as well as Lines West.
Finally getting to some decals. Had to coat my ancient SP&S decals with Liquid decal Film or they would just flatout fall to pieces. Also had to fudge some with some modelers' license on the lettering on this car. No white SP&S lettering is available spelled out and they used that in the letterboard rather than a football due to lack of room. However I do have some small enough to fit so went with that and the slogan which also was a bear to fit. And the edge at the roof was giving me fits so I got lucky and found a red stripe that matched the color and used that to give a reasonably clean line at the roof edge between the black and caboose red.
Some that were custom made for me, probably on an ALPS, back about 15 years or more ago. Those are the size of the decal sheets in the photo. Sadly the gentleman who made those is no longer in business. I have also used MS set 60-1026 since a lot of the smaller SP&S initials are way to big. And for steam some of the footballs from that set plus the NP steam set for some other details like tender capacities.
Other than going my route of dealing with a small batch producer or finding someone with some of the old Champs out there thats about it. I've long since given up seeing any steam decals much less passenger decals in N scale and a lot of the MicroScale stuff is being discontinued particularly the diesel. And for me the cost is just too prohibiting for me to think about a small run of what I would like to have.
Finally finished this project. Of the 5 cabooses 2 have been done as SP&S. The bay window version shown is the first SP&S bay window built from a former GN 25 foot cupola type. The 2nd is one of the group of six 25 footers that SP&S bought from GN. The bay window version came from that number group and batch. The bay window was built styrene and used Tichy Train Utility windows and some parts left from the AMB wood caboose kits including the wood end rails, and some MT parts from my parts boxes. The 25 foot cupola version has been weathered with Bragdon powders representing a caboose just off the eastern part of the system. The next set are all GN 25 footers two of which have the reinforced frame for Cascade Mountains helper service. The are variations in the roof colors reflecting the same variations found in my color pictorials. The one caboose sports the much older Rocky and is numbered appropriately for the first series of the 25 footers aquired by GN while the other two reflect later rebuilds. In all it has been about four weeks since I commenced this project and it has not been easy. There are well over a hundred parts close to about 160 parts total in each of the four wood versions. The bay window as stated before is mostly styrene. The parts are delicate and not without difficulty handling due to some of the small sizes and delicate nature. Using the suggest tip of the very thin ACC to strengthen some of the wood components paid off. One slipped out of my hand two days ago and hit the floor from about 3 and 1/2 feet up. Suprisingly my worst fears were not realised in that there was absolutely no damage done. The hardest parts of these kits were the window sashes, the roofwalk supports, and the danged little brakewheels. As I have stated before these are definetly craftsman level kits. But I managed with my old eyes and somewhat shaky hands by just taking my time. They are not totally perfect but I'm happy with them because for the first time I have cars that are absolutely prototype for the GN and SP&S. I have one last one to build, one of the 25 foot transfer conversions for GN and another bay window, this one a 28 footer for the SP&S that I already have sides laid out for. But for now I'm turning my attention to a group of 4-4-0s and some other steam projects.
Looking good John. I think I may do one more of these kits and assemble it with the reinforcing beam as part of the frame. I was curious to wonder if the shops, when they did this, if they just lifted the caboose off its wood frame and placed a steel frame on top of the wood or added to it or did completely away with the wood frame and adding the steel , changing the ride height and center of gravity.
From my photos in several books it does not appear that the ride heigth was changed at all. And one guide would be to look at the heigth of the end steps from the rail. Things that were changed out in the 1920 rebuild that most went through were the use of more or all steel in the end rail and platform area and top handrails, Although I haven't come across any details on the retro with the steel underframe with either SP&S or GN, and both did it at some point with a number of their cars, I will assume it would have involved lifting the car off the old wood frame, building a new frame from steel and setting the car back on the new frame. That new frame would have included the coupler and draft gear attachment points and any part of the rear platform that would have been subject to stresses imposed by a 2-6-6-2 in the early years to the M, N, R-1 and R-2 classes of articulated steam shoving on a 90 car train on 1.8% grade. The only wood left would have been the car body, roof, and the supports for the car floor resting on the new steel frame. Looking at the photos again of both cars you can see the ends of the wood cross beams on the non steel ones whereas the rebuilts you see the continuous steel frame below the woodside.
