n scale
model railroads of michigan
ls&i caboose #2
The Lake Superior & Ishpeming had a number of steel-sided cabooses in service through the 1970s and into the 1980s before the Staggers Act and de-regulation of the industry enabled the reduction of crew sizes and the ultimate elimination of the caboose as a regular feature on the rear end of trains. Fortunately, there are a number of good pictures in the archives and last time I checked, there was still one of these cabooses on display in Marquette.
Using the prototype images as a guide, I installed styrene squares as metal plates in the appropriate window frames and metal screens in the remaining open windows. This is just a standard Micro-Trains caboose, which started life as a Pepsi model. After removing the logo from the sides, I masked the ends to preserve the yellow safety striping, then I painted the carbody with the same green I used on my RSD12 conversion.
I know that the safety stripes do not match the actual stripes used by the LS&I - but I was able to match up the new decals pretty nicely and the overall effect is acceptable to me. I'm not a purist when it comes to the LS&I, so I can live with the inaccurate safety stripes!
This was a pretty easy project: basically a paint job and decals. The decals come from Micro-Scale, and are readily available either through their web site or occasionally you'll find a set popping up on eBay or other on-line retailers.
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Related pages of interest:
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