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 Posted - November 04 2014 : 12:30:50 PM
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I didn't get many photos of the beginning of the project, but here's one of messing with the marker lights. The "marker lights" as they are cast are pretty utilitarian . . . none of those fancy cast brass cannonballs. I thought some about getting some Cal Scale or what have you replacements, but I wanted to try and stay true to the "model" . . . "toy train" that it is. There is something about the simplicity of design that is used to "convey the idea" that this could be a real caboose . . . if that makes any sense. So I decided to mess with the kit supplied marker lights. I tried a few different things (a jewel looked a bit "over the top", particularly since I didn't have a good idea for getting the cupola mounted beacon to "appear" "glassy"). What I ended up doing was "filling" the light depression in the casting and then getting a meniscus bubble of clear glaze to lay on top. I'm not sure yet what I think about them, but they don't have the glaring presence of the square boxes that they are.
For the cupola mounted beacon, I ended up painting that gloss red and then clear coating it with glaze.
I made a change in the ladder mounting using existing roof holes.
As far as I know, these caboose kits come with 2 marker light castings, and four holes in the sides of the caboose. What to do with the other holes? Scratch some more marker lights together? I decided on signal flags. The openings for the marker lights are 1/16" square, so my flag holders are a small piece of brass stock whittled to 1/16 and then a 2 foot scale piece of wire to hold a one foot square [piece of wrinkled paper] flag. Fragile as hell, but if I don't pick it up too much.
Bottom line is I'm fairly happy with it, but I'm ready to try and do better the next time. If I was more patient, I would remove the ladders and pull the roof to get it to fit better, but I'm going to consider this a stage in the learning process for now.
Here's a few more photos . . .
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 Posted - November 04 2014 : 12:56:56 PM
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now I now the railroads ran them off center cabooses that way but for some reason it doesn't look right to me 
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Posted - November 04 2014 : 1:50:42 PM
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In the full-size world, a caboose has brackets on all four corners. The marker lights are detachable and would be hung on the end of the caboose away from the rest of the train. The other end would just be empty brackets.
Here's a bracket for lanterns or flags:
Here it is, in context:
I don't have pictures of marker lights, but they have a flanged fin sticking out the side that slides down into the slot in the bracket.
Ben, like you, I aesthetically prefer the cupola toward the back, but the real railroads would use them either way. The Great Northern used to like the side of the caboose with the icebox on the north side where the sun was not. I remember that the Sears catalog would always take the photo with the cupola forward.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - November 04 2014 : 2:13:42 PM
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| Don, thanks for the tip about the brackets. That makes a lot more technological and modeling sense. "Next time . . . ", Ha! Yeah, my favorite (now defunct) local line (Colorado Midland) seemed to run the cupolas forward like that.
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