As you all know by now... I got a thing for cabooses. ATSF Widowmaker Side Door Blind End Caboose under construction:
This is my second post for this. The first one went left someplace. Robert, That widow maker looks great. Why is it called widow maker?
Santa Fe called their cabooses "Way Cars", and the Side Door Way Cars inherited the nickname "Widowmakers" because many a hapless soul stepped out into a moving switcher in the yard. They were temporarly retired in the late '30s but were called back to service during the war effort, after which time they were permanantly retired I like to research a little of the history of the models I build for fun!
Looks great! Wasn't there another caboose you'd recently done? NYC? If so, got any photos to share? Boxcab E50
Thanks for all the nice comments guys, Here is the NYC 30' Wood 3 Window Caboose in Z Scale. No decals, trucks, or couplers yet, as I'm waiting on parts:
Thanks for the props Gary, I finally won an ebay auction for an ALPS printer (out of production 5 years), and it showed up yesterday. The plan was to make some custom decals. The printer came with no manual, and loose nuts and bolts rattling around inside, but I cleaned it up and removed the dust bunnies. I downloaded drivers from the ALPS Yahoo group, and did a test print, which came out fairly bad. I went back to work cleaning this thing, and pilled out wood chips 1 inch long out of the ink ribbons, more dust bunnies, and cleaning with a 50/50 mixture of rubbing alcohol and distilled water (best electronics cleaner around), and started playing with it. It took some help with the Yahoo group members but I was finall able to get a good print out of this old thing. I made a Northern Pacific Monad sized for a Z Scale F7 which measured .146", and has quite legible, crisp writing on it. Layed down white, then the black writing, then a yellow fill, and finally a magenta fill to make the red, white, and black monad. Next step is to do the rest of the artwork I need for a Z Scale North Coast Limited and ABA F units. Then to make some decals! These printers are so rare that I might have to keep this baby for my own personal use, and give my artwork to someone to make the decals commercially.
I made the ABA decals already, except the silver/gray patches under the cab doors because I cannot figure out how to do gray, and there are no silver ribbons available. I still have to overcote the decals too. I made several numbers too, but in A B & C matching, just like the mid 50's practice to keep them grouped. I have not started on passenger cars yet because I have not found a set on ebay yet, but all the Z Scale cars are coorigated side cars, and would need to be sanded down. I don't think I will go so far as to make the windows correct, because someone will eventually come out with brass car sides, and the marklin dome looks terrible anyway. When I move on to that part of the project, I'll just try to capture the "Flavor" of the NCL by sanding down to smoothsides, and painting. I am working on the ABA shells though, and I plugged the front of the A unit coupler pocket, and fashoned a coupler cover hatch for it since it will always be the lead unit. I sanded off the bogus horns, so I need to work on those, and the winderization hatch.
On the subject of the Widowmaker, Jon Miller, my neighbor just got back from the SFRHMS convention last night and I just got an email. He had about 60 signups for the widowmaker, which was not enough for the historical society to fund, so Jon and a couple other guys are pitching in to fund 100 HO units. The historical society will do the advertising, and sell them though. I'll do the N Scale versions myself. They were extremely happy with the N Scale model displayed, and the only thing they found wrong was... I put the smokejack on the wrong side! My bad. Easy fix.
