Identifying manufacturer
- Thread starter Toolbelt
- Start date
I've had 3 hits as far as road names/numbers go, and I can see some have Accurail and Athearn style coupling gear, while others have Kadee draught boxes installed. I have them on my bench as a couple had horn hook couplers, and one had plastic wheels, but the vendor threw in metal wheels and some replacement Kadees. I couldn't pass up 8 boxcars with metal wheels and Kadee couplers for $40 Cdn. I will post pics once I've finished servicing them. Here is one of the boxcars which actually has full suspension trucks along with Kadee draught boxes screwed on. The caboose is fairly well detailed with wire grabs everywhere and a fairly detailed underside. Looks like stock draft boxes with Kadees installed in them.
santafewillie
Same Ol' Buzzard
The boxcar has been sloppily renumbered.
Old 97
Hogger
Possibly a "Friday" job?
Yes, it does seem the numbers are a bit out of alignments. The other side (the french side) seems better done.
I did check their site earlier, and Walters seem to have the closest looking models with slight variations.
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
I agree. The chimney support "wires", the triangular upper ladder handles, and the Train Miniature type trucks are giveaways. I am surprised though that it has coil springs rather than leaf springs.
Maybe the crew honked off management, and the cab was equipped with freight trucks as punishment.
Wouldn't leaf springs have been used on older wood side models? This one has rivetted panels so I'm thinking late 60's?
Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
I'm not certain about "in general", but on the Santa Fe, there were only a few caboose which were refurbished in 1975 that were given the ASF 2 coil spring trucks, all the rest were leaf springs. Even their last order of new wide vision caboose (6 months before caboose were no longer mandated) had the leaf springs.
"As it is in your hand" it is from the 1970s. The AEI code bar on the side shows that.
I wondered what that thingy was? lol
skyliner
Well-Known Member
I'm not an expert, but from a somewhat quick search online, this is what I can find about your caboose (the prototype):
GTW 75026 is a steel cupola caboose, originally built for the ATSF in 1927 by ACF as part of an order of 150 cabooses (or 'waycars' as the Santa Fe called them). At some point before 1971, it and 39 other cabooses were sold to the GTW. Here is a slide of it for sale right now on Ebay:
Assuming the date on that is correct, you can see that by 1971 the cupola windows have been blanked out, and the side windows have screens over them. It also has the KarTrak ACI color barcode, which was required starting in 1967, and...coil spring trucks. It appears that ATSF replaced the leaf spring trucks at some point before sale.
I don't know when it was taken out of service, but guess what. It looks like your caboose is still alive in Michigan. There are pictures of it sitting on a siding in Palmyra, Michigan as recently as 2021, with the window blanks and screens removed. It appears to be privately owned now. Here are pictures at rrpicturearchives:
Sources for the above information:
nightowlmodeler.blogspot.com
en.wikipedia.org
GTW 75026 is a steel cupola caboose, originally built for the ATSF in 1927 by ACF as part of an order of 150 cabooses (or 'waycars' as the Santa Fe called them). At some point before 1971, it and 39 other cabooses were sold to the GTW. Here is a slide of it for sale right now on Ebay:
Original Slide Grand Trunk Western GTW 75026 Caboose Elston ILL 10-13-73 | eBay
Original Slide.
www.ebay.com
Assuming the date on that is correct, you can see that by 1971 the cupola windows have been blanked out, and the side windows have screens over them. It also has the KarTrak ACI color barcode, which was required starting in 1967, and...coil spring trucks. It appears that ATSF replaced the leaf spring trucks at some point before sale.
I don't know when it was taken out of service, but guess what. It looks like your caboose is still alive in Michigan. There are pictures of it sitting on a siding in Palmyra, Michigan as recently as 2021, with the window blanks and screens removed. It appears to be privately owned now. Here are pictures at rrpicturearchives:
Sources for the above information:
Santa Fe Cabooses (Part 1) - Steam Era
While the engines on our trains get the most attention and pictures, modeling the other end of the train is also important as the cabooses w...
nightowlmodeler.blogspot.com
KarTrak - Wikipedia
