I recently looked over my gaggle of cabooses. It is heavy with dark, drab cabooses, several brown Penn railroad and several mostly black ones. I do have three colorful bay window cabooses. I searched through some Lionel train guides and saw in later years, the 1980s and 90s, they made several more colorful cabooses. Then I noticed some of the Rio Grande and Union Pacific, with bright yellow and some red were real stand out cabooses. It so happened I had a set of Rio Grande and Union Pacific decals for each and several caboose bodies from a box full of caboose shells for a long time ago train show. I have recently posted, on other topics, my construction or repainting of several Rio Grande cabooses.
I also like to make or buy cabooses to match the coal tender railroad names. I have coal tenders or diesel engines with Rio Grande, Rock Island and Union Pacific, including two of my recently home made Vanderbilt coal tenders.
It was time to make a couple of Union Pacific cabooses. I started with a SP style caboose as I had a good shell and also the frame with two trucks with couplings a I like my cabooses to have two couplings. I found a SP style Union Pacific caboose with yellow being dominate in train guides and on eBay. Picture from internet.
I added a homemade light pick up to one of the trucks, made from brass shim stock and a piece of tin can for durability. I use trucks without working couplings to have room for pick up. The white wooden block is glued on with E6000 glue and serves to move the pick up back and provides a place to put a small screw to hold the brass shim pick up. See the folded edge on the shim to keep it from moving side wise and the plastic of the truck extends out past the wood block.
Ground wire on the other truck for the Christmas tree 12 v light bulb and a socket that was mounted in the cab.
I painted the car with some Model Master Insignia Yellow paint I had and trimmed with Testor's Red. I used semi gloss silver instead of gray of the Lionel Car in the first picture and added red trim and the UP loco to lively the car up. Windows were made from plastic milk cartons and glued in with E6000. The car is shown with my silver Union Pacific Lionel 2023 diesel AA set.
You can see I made and added two tool boxes under the caboose. A fine looking caboose and it is for now my favorite.
Union Pacific SP style caboose with homemade Union Pacific coal tender.
Next I wanted to make a colorful port hole window N5c Union Pacific caboose. I found this picture of a MTH N5c Union Pacific caboose on the internet.
Here is a Lionel 9168 Union Pacific N5c caboose shell I have had for years and is one my more colorful cabooses. This one has a, homemade by me, extended SP caboose metal base with SP caboose end plates with steps and added light and pickups. Lets see if I can beat it.
I found a good shape Lionel N5c shell without the metal base. I had several spare SP type metal bases but they are about an inch too short. I cut the metal base in half and added one more inch in length by adding a piece of 1/8 inch Masonite to joint it to lengthen it. I glued it together with E6000 glue and added a Christmas tree mini 12 v light and socket with pigtails. I also made a light pick up, as above for the SP style caboose, and added two trucks with couplings.
I had to make plastic end floor plates and steps as the shell of a N5c caboose shell does not have them like the SP shell has.
The shell was painted with the Model Master Insignia yellow paint and Testor's Red paint. Painting was a chore with all the masking and hand painted junction of the yellow and red.
I had to cut out some of the side rail to allow a Union Pacific logo to go on the side.
The Lionel N5c shell has a translucent plastic window liner installed. Wow, that is a handsome N5c caboose probably a tie with the Union Pacific SP style caboose above.
Union Pacific N5c Caboose with Union Pacific Homemade Vanderbilt coal tender.
My two new Union Pacific Cabooses showing out. These should liven up the layout. It is hard to keep your eyes off bright yellow cabooses.
Here is a little Cajun Louisiana lagniappe (a little extra). I had painted the top of a brown Penn N5c bright silver years ago just to make it different for the 4 or 5 of them I had. This one has an extended SP caboose metal base with SP caboose end plates with steps and added light and pickups. See I was doing these mods years ago.
It always was too bright of a roof. I found a picture of a later Lionel Penn N5c with the yellow cab and dark gray or black roof and painted her up. I liker her much better and I believe Penn had at least one caboose painted this way.
Charlie
