Colorado treasure hunt a success

[Richard Farmer]

When the opportunity to acquire a Colorado and Southern narrow gauge caboose (at no cost) presented itself, we almost immediately accepted. The car was in rather (very) poor condition with broken and rotting wooden parts and all of the metal removed sometime around 1942. To consider a restoration to operating condition would be out of the question to many experienced in railroad preservation. Fortunately, we had no experience working on old wooden railroad cars and excepted the challenge.
For the past ten years we have been studying, collecting and building some of the parts we would need to reassemble this caboose. We have made several expeditions to Colorado in an attempt to locate and acquire parts and we have found some very helpful and generous people to boot. One of the very last parts we needed was the sink. The sink found in a C&S caboose is rather unique and incredibly scarce. We had seen sinks in caboose 1006 in Silver Plume and 1009 at the Colorado Railroad Museum, they are pedestal sinks with the C&S logo and pattern number cast in and would be difficult to reproduce. On a prior visit to the Museum we talked to our friend Jeff Taylor and explained the effort we had gone through trying to find a sink for our car, Jeff said he would let us know if he ever saw one that was available. When we visited Jeff last month he asked if we still needed a sink and said he had found one hidden away in one of the cars they used for storage. When he showed us the sink we really could not believe our eyes it was the exact sink we needed down to the cast lettering. Thank you Jeff and all of the other people (and there are many) who have helped us and there are many who have supported our project. We are currently in the beginning stages of assembly and hope to have the frame, wheel and spring assembly completed shortly.
Here are a couple of sink photos.

[Richard Farmer]

[Chris Walker]

The car was in rather (very) poor condition with broken and rotting wooden parts and all of the metal removed sometime around 1942. To consider a restoration to operating condition would be out of the question to many experienced in railroad preservation.

In case anyone here isn't familiar with just what Richard took on.

Mal Ferrell photo.



Kudos to you both on the Sink score!

[Doug Heitkamp]

Congratulations obtaining the sink, what a great find!

[Chris Walker]

So after reviewing my short video of the inside of the 1009 at Golden https://flic.kr/p/ryrb2E 

I can't help ask where did they put the kitchen sink?  Is it inside a locker or did you unexpectedly end up with it for 1008.

[Richard Farmer]

Hi Chris - the sinks in 1009, 1006 are located in the left corner of the car at the “B” end (behind the open door in your video). On 1008 the sink is also in the left corner of the car but because the brake cylinder and reservoir are mounted on the left side of 1008 and the cylinder is pointing toward the cupola the sink end of the car has become the “A” end. I’m pretty sure that 1005 would have been the same. Just one of several differences we have found between 1005, 1008 and the rest of the caboose fleet (anyone know why?).
Richard

[Fred H.]

More great news, Richard. We love following your grand adventure! Happy to see progress photos whenever you can share.