How wide and long is a Lionel MPC bay window caboose?

10 and a 1/2 inches long coupler to coupler. 2 1/2 inches wide.  bay window caboose

8 inches long   2 1/4 inches porthole caboose

Body is certainly too narrow — only 2 inches from wall to wall compared to 2 3/8 to 2 1/2 inches for most cabooses.

That’s generally the case for Lionel MPC cabooses. On the extended-vision caboose, the body is also 2 inches wide. The extended-vision cupola is about 2 1/2 inches in width on the MPC model. It should be about 2 5/8 inches.

The length is long enough on both the bay window and extended vision cabooses — maybe a bit too long compared to my Atlas and MTH models, but that, of course, would depend on what prototype Lionel was using. 

Without measuring a real bay window, most were somewhat narrow bodied, account the bays making a normal width.  The home built bay window cabs out of boxcars were too wide to interchange without a High/Wide clearance and when those roads became absorbed, those cabs were almost IMMEDIATLY retired because of that.  Reference old Norfolk Southern and either GARR or A&WP.

By Christmas, I hoping Menard's has a Bay Window Caboose in their lineup.

NHVRYGray posted:

Without measuring a real bay window, most were somewhat narrow bodied, account the bays making a normal width.  The home built bay window cabs out of boxcars were too wide to interchange without a High/Wide clearance and when those roads became absorbed, those cabs were almost IMMEDIATLY retired because of that.  Reference old Norfolk Southern and either GARR or A&WP.

Bay window cabooses were as wide as the typical caboose — roughly 9.5 to 10 feet. Making them narrower than a freight car would defeat the purpose of a bay window cabooses. The bay window allowed the brakeman or conductor to see around the freight cars ahead of it. If the bay window was only as wide as the freight car in front of it, you could only see that car.

Any railroad with side clearance problems would have opted to use traditional cupola cabooses. 

Went and measured two local cabooses, Southern bay window X758 and N&W standard (non wide vision) C31 518554

The bay widow caboose measures as follows 8ft 6in over the end sill width, not counting grab irons, bays are 14 deep each side. Length over end sills was approx 37ft

The cupola caboose measures as follows 9ft 6in over the end sill width, not counting grab irons. Length over end sills was approx 37ft.

No attempt was made to measure height.

So in actuality comparing Southern bay window (Nickel Pate C5,C6,C7 are close as well) to an N&W C31 the bay window is actually somewhat wider over extreme width's, but the main body of the bay window is a foot narrower.

So the 2 inch Lionel body is a little narrow by 1/8 inch but close.  I think Lionel based there model on the Erie bay windows with high speed trucks.  I have no information on and no access to an Erie cab, but that would explain Lionel's original use of the 027 passenger truck under the model.  Probably pretty close to scale measurement's based on other cabs.

Atlas may be an SP prototype (I know the Athearn HO was), no idea as to the MTH prototype.

Gray Lackey

on a "77" LCCA car I got .....

...length; body panel total 8-3/32"; roof boards 9-15/16", roof 9-9/16", porch from rail to rail 9.5".

..width, 2" body and 2.5" at the windows... forgot the steps  Ask if you need more.

I'd have to say Jim R's explaination sounds more right to me, though I don't really doubt that once certain roads absorbed another, some were done away with either.  But I doubt those bigger roads mentioned used many side bays, if any.  (purely specualtion and imagination here) 

  And if a simple window in a box car could do the trick, why narrow a car and add a bay. Seems like a big waste of time and money to me. The whole point is up, or out to the side enough to see well without exposure to the elements as an added distraction.

"Bigger  Roads" that used Bay Windows: Southern, Erie, Nickel Plate (Later Norfolk and Western), Southern Pacific, New York Central (half height bay), Baltimore and Ohio (later Chessie), Chessie proper, plus I'm sure others although not many used bay window cabs exclusively.

The widest standard width for any AAR (Association of American Railroads) loading gauge plate clearance is 10ft 8in extreme. so adding 2 ft to a 10ft (or wider) boxcar defiantly exceeds any standard AAR standard with.  That would be a problem for free roaming cabooses (as most do) on large systems.  Excess clearances while dealt with frequently on a case by case basis for freight would place problems on non special (caboose) movements as far as routing, meets, equipment utilization. 

Track curvature allowed a bay window to work, not width.

Gray Lackey

Here’s two drawings of bay windows, each exceeding the AAR standard you mentioned. One is 10’9” and the other is 10’10”. (And no one said bay window cabooses were 12 feet wide.)

The body on each exceeds 9 feet in width wall to wall. So the correct scale width for these models would be 2 1/4 inches. That’s a scale foot wider than Lionel’s.

The only O gauge cabooses I have found with 2-inch widths is Lionel. Again, I have bay window cabooses made by K-Line and MTH and wide-vision cabooses made by MTH and Atlas, plus numerous models in N scale. All scale to body width of 9 feet away from the bay window and nearly 11 feet over the bay windows.

Agreed, body itself (not over bays) is somewhat narrow depending on prototype, 1/8 narrow for a Southern at 8-6 wide for the prototype, who knows compared to the Lionel Erie (I think)  prototype, just like the real ones.  Like steam engines different roads had different caboose designs.

My comments concerning about being as wide as a boxcar were for the body only, not over the bays.  Yes, over bays are the same width (about) as a freight car as one would think.

I mentioned cabs built from boxcars with wide bodies as being excess width, and then being retired when absorbed into a larger road.  See attached of the two Norfolk Southern cabooses end to end, standard cupola and home-built bay window from a boxcar - the home-built's are the ones that were wide being a standard (most likely older) boxcar plus the bays.

The crews must have loved the home-built's, due to extra space, but who knows how they rode.

Now I get what you what you were driving at N-grey. I'm not sure what I missed the first time, but it makes more sense now.

While the old Lionel isn't 1:48 scale; it at least seems very close to scale proportions.

(I might even do the math later if I manage to sleep soon )

I doubt the MPC-era Lionel bay window is based on a narrower prototype. It’s more likely that the Lionel product designers of that era simply chose to make a narrow body to match a number of other too-narrow freight cars, including the gondolas, hoppers and (later) ore cars.

Again, even the wide-vision cabooses are too narrow, not matching any prototype.

So, in my view, Lionel bay window cabooses are too narrow for scale-oriented operators, but they are fine (with some great paint schemes) for the toy train crowd.