The pictures on this page show a couple of my custom DT&I cabooses. I am not a DT&I purist, but after originally numbering these with whatever I had on my last decal sheet I have since stripped these down and swapped out the numbers and added a compass herald to better match the prototypes. My goal was to add a couple DT&I cabooses to my roster to complement my DT&I GP35s, so I figured I might as well try to get the paint schemes and numbers correct. 

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I did do a little research to find photos of DT&I cabs in service as of the mid-late 1970s and early 1980s, and the blank-out window patterns and paint schemes reasonably seem to match what I found on-line. Decals were once again made by SoliDesign, and the scratch-built cupolas are explained in detail at my main "how-to" page where I show how I went about creating Wabash-style AA, DT&I, N&W, and M&LS cabooses.

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#125 is fresh out of the paint shop and posed in front of a depot on my display layout, circa 2025, with the image captured by current iPhone camera using room lighting.

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#123 is not so fresh out of the paint shop, as I applied some light weathering - this image was also captured on my display layout with my iPhone. 

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Believe it or not, these were both hand-painted with the same bottle of Floquil caboose red... but #123 had a dark gray primer and #125 used light gray. Just to show the difference that primer, paint, and lighting can make in how a model looks! 

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And finally, as fate would have it, I stumbled into the discovery of a former DT&I caboose that went to and from the Ann Arbor... ending up back on the DT&I roster shortly before the DT&I was merged into the Grand Trunk Western. On the GTW, this caboose received a GT paint scheme, but it retained its DTI road number 122 and DTI sub-lettering. This photo was also taken on my current dispay layout. 

 

I found a suitable decal set for this project at K4-Decals and used prototype pictures as a guide to add another unique caboose to my roster - which of course will now require the acquisition of GTW motive power for it to make any sense on or near my layout. But that's why model railroading is fun!