The Caboose for the Pickled Cabbage Railway "PCR" in 3" scale on 7.25" gauge track
After finishing my diesel-engine, I needed some cars for the train, especially a riding car. So, I searched for interesting cars and found in old issues of the Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette some freelanced On30-cars, which looked interesting for me. After calculating the major measurings for the wood, I ordered from my friend in Kiel the needed material. It is called Meranti, a side-product of Mahogani. In may 1999, I drove to Kiel for running my engine on his layout and to take the wood with me home.
Before this trip, I had constructed an experimantal-car from scrap-wood to test, how a fixed coupler would work on a thight radius. On this "car", I also tested the just bought trucks, which first didn't operated very well. Later, I figured out, what's wrong, and since this time the perform beautyful. This trucks are not scale trucks, but they are designed for riding-cars and fully sprung - and really expensive.
Although I had ordered the wood for 8-wheel-cars, with the price of the commercial available trucks my plans changed to smaller cars. I got drawings from Gary Watkins of Sierra Valley Enterprises for his small industrial 4-wheel-cars, and they look so nice, that I decided, in future only to build such cars. The only exception, I later made, was the riding-car ("for health-reasons of my back ;-))) ).
With the trucks and the wood in hand, I ordered some more axles for the other cars and started in fall 1999 the construction. I build parallel a 8-wheel-flatcar and a 4-wheel-flatcar. The 4-wheel-car was nearly finished in summer 2000 (except a scale coupler), and the 8-wheel-flatcar was designed to be later used as the chassis for my caboose. I had looked through different books and decided, to build up Westside Lumber #4 without the cupola.
During the first ¾ year of 2000, I tried to get more wood for the caboose-shell. Sadly, without success. But, with the deadline for the Finescale Railroader contest "Build a caboose" approaching, I started to think, what I could do. I checked the wood I had in stock and found out, that more sills for car-frames than I would need. I could saw them to the needed scale and use them for the caboose-shell.
So, on october 21, 2000, I started to saw the wood:
That's no rain, that's sawdust on the picture ;-))
During the next week, I cut all parts to length and notched them, where needed. After that, I glued them all together.
Here are some photos from the construction time:
The first sideframe temporary mounted to the flatcar
Construction of the last frontwall framing
The finished framing for the Caboose-shell
Next I bought some hard-plywood, called Multiplex, with birch-surface, to cover the wood-framing. I notched in grooves to simulate the single planks, using a Dremel with router attachment:
Grooving of the sidewalls
After grooving all parts for the walls, I glued them to the framing. The next photo is a nice shot of october 31, 2000:
It took nearly another month to finish the roof and to produce and install the doors and windows.
The december 2000 was filled up with the construction of the platform-railings (from 4 mm brass-pipes and t-connectos/ellbows), the caboose-steps as well with installing some details like the Brakewheel (2.5" scale castings from Como Roundhouse Products and the paintjob of the body except the trucks. It was hard to get a fitting paint, and I took a 3/8n20 model of the caboose, painted with boxcar-red, with me to the next Do-It-Yourself-Store, so that they could mix the colour.
Over the christmas-days, I primed and painted the trucks:
After reinstalling the trucks, the caboose wasn't finished complete, but in such a condition, that I could take it with me to the Indoor Live Steam Festival in Sinsheim. The following photo shows the caboose their:
Returned from the show, I paintsanded the roof and installed the small strip-wood to simulate the joints of the roofing-material. And than, the caboose was finished for the Finescale Railroader contest.
I won a honorable mention with this photo.
In summer 2001, I covered the wooden buffer-blocks with steal-angles. Main reason where two accidents, where other engines couldn't brake fast enough and bumped into the caboose. Their are some marks of this accidents, which can be seen, but the steal-parts will hopeful prevent further damage.
Only remaining part is the interiour and to install the link&pin-couplers. And at last, caboose-marker-lamps. And, at last, I have to rework the roof.
