caboose picture

[NW Mailing List]

Jim

I think I can shed a little light here. This is speculation based on what I remember when looking for the drawings back in the 1980s at the railroad.

That caboose was one that was given to VMT when it opened in 1963. It was probably painted and lettered nicely at the time. VMT was a city park and maybe not fenced. I remember there was some vandalism at some point about 1968-69 where stuff was badly graffitied. I think No. 6 and the wooden cab were the prime targets. I cut photos out of the newspaper, which is how I remember the time frame.

The city probably decided that it was time to repaint the stuff anyway, so they had its paint crew come out and paint the caboose red and the engine black. Then it was time to letter it and nobody had thought about that part. So, they called the railroad and asked for the stencils of the lettering. Of course, by then N&W was into the half moon herald, and the original lettering drawings had been drawn over with the half moon scheme and the originals either lost or misfiled, or erased and reused.

Well, the railroad tried to do the right thing, went out and found a cab still lettered in the steam era style and traced it which was the 518391 and redid a drawing for the lettering, which stated this was done from cab 51839, and they had traced the number as well. They probably had someone cut the stencils at the paint shop, and give them to the city and the cab became 518391 at that point, and each time it was repainted, it stayed the same until research showed otherwise.

When I went looking for steam era caboose lettering drawings, the notes said that this was what had been done.

The same thing sort of happened with repainting the RS-3 No. 300 when it was presented to VMT in the mid 1980s. The drawing for the script herald had been replaced with the half moon version, so they sent someone out and found an RS11 with an intact herald on it, 378, I believe, and traced and redid a drawing for it from that. I know this for sure, as I have a copy of that drawing in my files for sure, and I think one for the caboose as well, but I've not seen that in a long time.


Best
Ken Miller

On Jan 18, 2016, at 9:55 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

> Archives item RB00313 shows a wood sheathed caboose numbered 518391 and the caption says the picture was taken at VMT in '93.  The number would put the cab in the CG series, but these were steel and this one looks to be a CF.  Was there a numbering problem with this caboose at this time?  Is it the same caboose that is at the VMT today which they say it CF 518302?
> Jim Cochran  
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/