Re: Eight wheel Caboose on C&Sng?

Posted by Richard Farmer on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Eight-wheel-Caboose-on-C-Sng-tp488p1899.html

My brother Bob and I own and are restoring C&S caboose 1008. I have thought for sometime that the car might have come from some other railroad but I have not been able to locate any documented proof to support this. However, we have studied C&S caboose 1006 in Silver Plume and while similar there are some differences in the construction. I have been watching the restoration photos of 1006 to compair to what we have found on 1008. I have found that the car did have a center cupola at one time as evidenced by cuts and supporting bolt holes in the top plates of the frames. This is further supported by a C&S folio page showing cars 1005 and 1008 with center cupolas as well as the photo of 306 (1005) on page 112 of the Narrow Gauge Pictorial.  I do not have the date that the folio was produced which makes this information incomplete but still revelent (anybody know?). Of course we have found all of the differences found on cars 1005 and 1008 which have been discovered by researchers years ago including the rounded corners with cutout spaces for a double lamp bracket, fairly standard for passenger equipment but not so much on caboose. The door frames are also rounded, again similar to passenger equipment. As has been pointed out in several articles I have studied the "A" and "B" ends on 1005 and 1008 are switched when compared to other C&S caboose and certainly different than 1006 and 1009 which I have visited several times. The windows are of a different style than those found on the the other caboose and when we removed the siding we did find the framing for the 2 windows that were removed when the car was rebuilt, moving the cupola to the "B" end of 1008.
I have read the information in the preceding posts with great interest. I don't know if the actual story of our car will ever be confirmed but without a history (factual) I don't feel that a restoration is totally complete.
Thank you to all who have shared your knowledge. Please let me know if I can help you with your research.
Richard Farmer