I seem to have a tendency to model things the big companies will never make. I decided to put together a complete train that might have been seen on a local railroad, the Virginia Blue Ridge Railway, which was famous for using steam late into the 60s. It's easy enough to find freight cars lettered for other regional railroads (SR, N&W, C&O), but the engine and caboose are another matter. I started with the latter. The VBR had an ex-Southern wooden caboose that would be perfect:
(Image from http://www.whippanyrailwaymuse...a-blue-ridge-railway)
The problem was, nobody has made a commercial model of that caboose. Mullet River has a kit, and Brother Love makes beautiful ones from scratch. I decided on another route: start with a caboose that had basically good bones, and modify it beyond recognition. Enter the doomed K-Line woodsided:
Comparing the before and after photos will be like a Where's Waldo - there were many details to change. The biggest challenge was the fact that the caboose was about 3 scale feet too long, and a little too tall. So, armed with nothing but ambition, a Dremel tool, and a mini-saw, I reduced the caboose to pieces:
The die-cast frame was put back together with JB Weld (which worked beautifully), and the shell went back together with some added gussets and CA glue. The cupola was lowered and relocated to a new hole cut in the center, and the old hole was filled in with the piece I cut out of the middle and - you guessed it - more JB Weld. The K-Line trucks were a little "high-water" looking, and it was fairly easy to lower the top of the bolster with a Dremel grinder. Among other details, metal from the bottom of a coffee can was turned into the awnings, and an Easter egg dipper furnished the cupola braces. New platforms came from scrap wood. The only added parts are the corner steps. The lettering is Clover House dry transfer alphabet sheets, which are great to use. It's not perfectly straight, but for a dinky shortline - what do you want.
This was a really fun project, which wasn't expensive and didn't take any special tools, and now I have a really unique model on the end of my train. It's not perfect, but reasonably well approximates the prototype. Eventually I plan to do a similar treatment to the WBB 4-6-0 for the front end, but that'll have a wait a while. I hope this will encourage others - if you can't find what you want, take that model and bash it!
