What did I buy? Caboose version

Looks like you have a Kusan/Williams/K-Line/RMT caboose body grafted to a Lionel/MPC frame.

Rusty

I THINK I have seen that caboose body somewhere in the tinplate world.  At first I

thought it might be a Kusan body on an earlier frame.  Frame is all metal and

obviously commercially formed.  I think somebody has put the ? body on an existing frame, and then painted and lettered it.

That looks like a Marx ladder.

It's sounding like a parts box bashed special.

Thank you all for your replies.  Azgary

I think you have it. May be a Marx ladder from their tank car and end railings from a post-war Lionel caboose. Looks like a K-Line caboose, it used a Marx type ladder, that has been prettied up. There are some for sale on the bay now.

whatever it may be, it looks good.

Reminds me of an Atlas 2 rail caboose that had been converted to 3 rail.  I bought one at a show once. I would have to dig it out to be sure, but yours looks very familiar. 

It's K-Line and  some were sold as kits.

Bob

Retired Reading Company Conductor George Ether sold modified K-Line cabooses under the grandstand at the York Meet. I always enjoyed talking with him. Here is a photo of his illuminated Reading caboose with pairs of windows and the K-Line box. It was along time ago, but I vaguely recall replacing K-Line trucks with those diecast trucks.

Williams acquired AMT / KMT tooling and sold cars and cabooses as kits. This may be one.

The dates on the bottom - 1989, 1990, and 1991 - are important clues. Back then, MPC / Lionel, Weaver, and  Williams trains were tapping a growing market. But catalogs were more like sales flyers. Nothing like today's vast variety of trains was available. The only 3-rail scale trains were reissues of Lionel's Hudson and Pennsy B6 switcher as well as Williams Crown Edition Hudsons, NYC Niagaras, N&W J's and SP Cab-Forwards. Readily available parts enabled lots of kitbashing to fill gaps in rosters.

IMHO, that caboose is a perfect example of a widespread aspect of 3-Rail "O"Gauge railroading back then. So many trains are available today that kitbashing has declined considerably, though examples are posted on the Forum. But around 1990 (and earlier), lots of people did it.

Even the green Madison cars by Madison Hardware in another Topic are an offshoot of that. Lionel heavyweights were last cataloged in 1950. Take some bodies, frames, trucks (and lights?) in stock for years; paint them; letter them; assemble them; sell them to fill gaps in customers' rosters.

Please send photos and a brief article to Ed Boyle for Collector's Gallery on OGR. That caboose and those dates tell an important story.