Red Caboose Freight Car Tooling....Quo Vadis?

I believe that Intermountain was the one who actually tooled the Red Caboose O scale equipment. Atlas bought Intermountain's tooling and produced the steel Ice Bunker refrigerator cars and GP7/GP9 diesels. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of it.

dkdkrd posted:

In particular, I'm a bit frustrated over the absence of a decent 42' flatcar...WITHOUT stake pockets already molded/attached to the sides.  I have a pet MOW car project on my 'bucket list'.....the prototype was built from a pocket-less flat.

Don;t let that stop you. If they are molded in, just shave them off with a scalpel.  Or, grind them off with an end mill in the Dremel.  It'll only hurt a little,

dkdkrd posted:

mwb posted:

Don;t let that stop you. If they are molded in, just shave them off with a scalpel.  Or, grind them off with an end mill in the Dremel.  It'll only hurt a little,

Martin...  I know, I know....I could do that.  It wouldn't be 'pretty', but I've tackled worse...in my younger years.  I'm afraid there's be a bunch of rivet details on the side frames MIA by the time I removed a couple dozen pockets.

Small end mill in the small variable speed drill press - clean & tidy.

The tooling for the reefer, flat car and tank car is still with original owners of Red Caboose and they are offering it for sale.  I know one party was interested earlier this year but not sure how it turned out.

dkdkrd posted:

Being lazy on searches...

Who acquired the O scale Red Caboose freight car tooling?......or does it languish without a future somewhere?....or worse!?

In particular, I'm a bit frustrated over the absence of a decent 42' flatcar...WITHOUT stake pockets already molded/attached to the sides.  I have a pet MOW car project on my 'bucket list'.....the prototype was built from a pocket-less flat.

These kits are hard to find anymore on the secondary market.  And every time I see Scale City's ads featuring the 5oz. or 6oz. weights (formerly Keil Line) for those car kits I rip the remaining hairs off my mostly-bald head in exasperation!

Thanks for any info.....and toleration of frustration.

KD

I might have one or two undecorated kits in my pile of unbuilt kits if you are interested. I’ll look later and let you know.

Peter 

I too am interested in the Red Caboose flat car and tank car. I’ve heard the flat is a PRR version of the USRA design from 1918, anyone know the prototype for the tank car?

The tank car is  10,000 gallon and the model is really fragile

Tooling is now at Intermountain though only one of the senior people there is involved with it.  There was some interest last year by another manufacturer to acquire it, but I am guessing it fell through as I have heard nothing.  I have many of their cars and quite like them nor do I find them as fragile as the original intermountain cars.

J2M

I have built quite a few of the Red Caboose O Scale tank cars, I highly recommend the purchase of the Red Caboose tank car weights, Item 48-554 from Scale City Design. The tank car shell is made of two separate segments these weights must be bonded to the bottom tank segment before gluing the two tank shell segments together. I use RTV to bond the weights to the bottom shell segment, also I substitute the plastic brake wheel shaft with brass wire .025 or .032 dia. I also recommend the assembled tank car tank at the bolster locations have the  two holes hand tapped for the truck mounting screws before further assembly. The Red Caboose tank car kit compliments the Intermountain tank car kits, both are O scale.

@j2morris posted:

Tooling is now at Intermountain though only one of the senior people there is involved with it.  There was some interest last year by another manufacturer to acquire it, but I am guessing it fell through as I have heard nothing.  I have many of their cars and quite like them nor do I find them as fragile as the original intermountain cars.

 

J2M

My understanding is that Intermountain has gotten completely out of O scale, except for their 2-rail wheelsets which have pretty much become the ‘standard’ of the NMRA 2-rail crowd (they are nice but they are LARGER than NMRA standard so have a difficult time running on the same track with Proto-sized wheels so I am selling all mine off and going to Proto:48).

Why would Intermountain even acquire the nice Red Caboose dies if they have no interest in O scale?

dkdkrd: that is a beautiful model!

John Ochab: thanks for the tip!

And answering my own question, early this morning I found the answer in this forum on Model Railroader:

(Oddly I can’t paste it here so message me if you’re interested...)

Also found a great article in a prototype magazine that shows the Red Caboose tank car is a 103w welded oil tank car from about 1932, not used much because by the ‘30’s petroleum oil usage was so widespread it went by pipelines. 

It seems it can be backdated to earlier models (I Model 1929) by adding rivets, minor appliance changes and changing the air brake cylinder to a K type. 

Thanks for all the responses on this thread. 

Hi Russel,

Intermountain created the Red Caboose tooling and Atlas passed on it when they acquired the Intermountain branded tooling.  Red Caboose paid Intermountain to create their tooling and it has always resided at Intermountain, i.e., they didn't acquire it after they got out of O scale, they already had it and has been sitting idle ever since.

@Russell - Idaho USA posted:

I too am interested in the Red Caboose flat car and tank car. I’ve heard the flat is a PRR version of the USRA design from 1918, anyone know the prototype for the tank car?

The Red Caboose flat car isn't a PRR car, it's a 1930s NYC design that is also suitable for B&O.   I have the Railmodel Journal by the late Dr. Hendrickson that details this flat but unfortunately it's buried at the time.   Still better than the Tichy HO flat car  model that is only good for NC&StL as it sits.  

Sadly the Red Caboose welded tank car is an uncommon prototype, apparently from the early 1950s.   Sad, since the most common tank car on rails, the UTLX X3, was never done in O scale. 

Given the propensity to offer a ton of colorful fantasy tank car paint schemes it's too bad someone didn't at least make the basic model on the most common tank car of the steam/transition era instead of an oddball prototype. 

Oh, I believe the Railmodel Journal articles are online somewhere ("Trainlife" maybe) but I can't find them at the moment so no linky.