Re: a second Caboose that Might Have Been.

Posted by John Greenly on
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/the-caboose-that-never-was-tp8369p9419.html

Jim,

wow, thanks!!  Maybe I'm not losing my mind after all.  Sure, I'll certainly accept 6' 3" instead of 6' 4"!!  I can't believe that I never noticed the short wheelbase 304/1003 in the folios, I've looked through those lots of times but never paid attention to that car, I guess.  I've never come across any discussions of short wheelbases.   I'm sure Derrell Poole's set of articles in Outdoor Railroader doesn't mention this, or I missed it somehow.  I'm pretty sure all his drawings of the DSP&P cars show 9' wheelbases.  

I did notice the lack of round corners on 313 at Blackhawk, forgot to mention it in my post.  Because of that, as much as because of the short wheelbase, I like your suggestion that  maybe the original #80 was wrecked and replaced with another car.  Do I remember that 80 disappeared from the inventory for some time and then reappeared?  Have to look that up, I think in Derrell's articles.

Now I'm leaning toward your suggestion to give up on 313/1010 as hopelessly weird and mysterious,  and number both of my cabooses 1011! (I actually chose 1010 in the first place only because I liked the looks of the number better- as usual, blundering into something complicated!).

In the third of Derrell's articles is a photo of a hypothetical model he built of 314  as it might have been just before renumbering to 1011.  He built it with modern undercarriage and no cupola, but he put on a roof walk and straight ladders, though he pointed out that there was, as of his writing in 1995, no known evidence of this ever having been done on a caboose without a cupola.  His rationale was that C&S might have  done this to satisfy the safety requirements. But my understanding is that the drop-dead date on meeting those wasn't until 1916 or 1917 (depending on who you read) and this very possibly explains why 1011 was scrapped in Jan. 1917 if it was never brought up to the standards. So I think my new model has a good rationale for being the actual 1011 at the end of its life, and my first model remains, also as 1011, the Caboose that Never Was.  Now I have to find some more "1"s in my decal sets....

Cheers,
John