Caboose SLSF 1288 - BN 11616 Caboose SLSF 1288 - BN 11616 - Ash Grove, MO. Photograph dated 8/10/1986.
Ash Grove, Missouri sold caboose SLSF 1288 today. It will move to Tulsa, OK to be restored in its as delivered brown "Ship it on the Frisco!" paint scheme. It will be displayed with caboose SLSF 1232 from Seneca, MO in caboose red paint, and also with caboose SLSF 1249 from Leon, Kansas in the Mandarin orange and white paint. I intend to restore caboose SLSF 1288 and put it back on live rail, it already has roller bearing trucks and the caboose is in great condition.
Congrats on you third caboose purchase. Good luck on the move and restoration of this car. It will be nice to see an active Frisco caboose one day.
Thanks Murphy, Looking forward to getting caboose SLSF 1288. It is in the best physical condition of the three and therefore the best candidate to return to the rails. It does not have the glamorous General Steel Castings (GSC) sing hanger trucks like the earlier models but it does have high speed caboose trucks with roller bearings which are required for mainline operation today. Caboose SLSF 1288 does have the distinction of never being painted in BN colors. It was Mandarin orange and white when retired in 1986. Today we worked on caboose SLSF 1232 at Seneca, MO getting it ready to move. Crane and trucks will be there tomorrow February 6 to load it and move it to Coweta, OK. It will sit overnight and then move into Tulsa, OK on Friday morning.
Missouri's loss is Indian Territory's gain! Congratulations and thanks for your efforts to preserve these cabooses.
There is a slide on e-bay, Frisco caboose SLSF 1288. It is a nice image showing the full side in the "ship it" paint. First image I have ever seen of caboose SLSF 1288 that was not Mandarin orange and white. I would love to see this in our Frisco Archive. I will bid on it and buy it and mail it to you guys, or you guys could buy it and I can just pay you back. Same result either way, but the latter saves one step in the process. I do not know how to post a link to the auction site, but I saved the image and will post it here. Thanks!
I have decided to give caboose SLSF 1288 her own thread, since work will be done steady on her in the future it will be a good way to post progress photographs separately from caboose SLSF 1291. Caboose SLSF 1288 was built in June of 1969, it was retired in 1986, and was donated to Ash Grove, MO. They put it on display at the city park. She was moved to Tulsa in 2014 to be restored in Mandarin orange and white paint and will be in operating condition by 2018 or 2019. The caboose has the usual interior and cupola rust, as well as some collision damage on both platform ends and on one of the body sides, but nothing that cannot be corrected. Caboose SLSF 1288 has outstanding brake rigging that is straight with no damage, and has roller bearing trucks. We are restoring caboose SLSF 1288 from the outside in, instead of starting inside like we did with caboose SLSF 1291. The first photograph is caboose SLSF 1288 in all her Mandarin orange and white glory. The second photograph is at the park, I thought the snow was perfect for setting the mood for her neglected state. I look forward to seeing caboose SLSF 1288 in Mandarin orange and white paint, coupled to caboose SLSF 1291 in "ship it" paint, rolling down the tracks together. What a fun day that will be. Progress photographs later this week.
The graffiti is compliments of the youth of Ash Grove, MO. The interior is fairly complete. The only real issues are floor rot, some lower wall area rust through, a few missing pieces like door hardware and a couple window frames.
Photographs below show the A end with the damaged parts cut away. You can see how we make a new end frame by using a Chevrolet truck frame we split, then angle cut it it to build the compound curve. We did one of these on caboose SLSF 1291. We have 2 more to do on caboose SLSF 1288, both on the B end. Thanksgiving tomorrow, then rain Friday, so we probably will not get any more work done until next week.
I never tire of seeing the work you do, Paul. Brilliant stuff! I know I do not say it enough, but thanks to you for all you do to preserve and restore these cabooses. It is a huge service to the Frisco community.
Thanks guys! Ryan, I enjoyed meeting you a couple weeks ago, loved seeing your caboose models, very impressive work. I envy your talent. Tomorrow is going to be cold and rainy so we will be working in the shop building on the new step plates and end gratings. I was going to use grating likes original, but the grates are pretty expensive, almost $600 for enough material to do the entire caboose. I just happen to have some new diamond plate steel, not original but its great stuff I have seen it on other caboose platforms and it looks really nice. We have already built the step side frames, duplicating the originals using 1/4" plate steel and 2" angle iron. The angle iron was originally attached by round head rivets. We did not use rivets, but we used bolts with the same head as the rivets, and then welded the nuts to the threads. They look the part. Will post photographs of tomorrows progress. Fun stuff!
