Years ago in Trains magazine in an article featuring the Quanah, Acme, & Pacific railroad there was a photo of Hubert Wells standing beside a caboose quite similar to this one pictured. Who has that photo? I am searching, but it has not turned up yet. Additionally, a caboose like this one used to sit in a pasture between Paducah and Quanah, TX. Today it is gone, and I would bet a nickel it burned up in a pasture fire.
Well...never mind what I posted above. I found a better caboose made by K-Line and decorated it with a pleasant surprise: decals made for QA&P boxcars and cabooses in O scale by Protocraft.com. The black and white photos are from the Protocraft website. I thought about cutting out the muntins on the side windows but decided against it. It is still pretty darn close to the real thing.
Does anyone on this forum subscribe to Trains & Railroads of the Past ?? Issue #33 1st quarter 2023 features an eleven page article on railroads in the Wichita falls, TX area including several paragraphs with photos of the Frisco and QA&P. There were two photos of QA&P caboose 47 which I had never seen before. That got me in gear to find an O gauge model to redecorate. This caboose was long-gone before I ever marked up in Quanah. The only departure I had to make in recreating #47 was to put the QUANAH ACME & PACIFIC text on a strip of styrene...the various O gauge decal sets for QA&P cars do not include this line of text. I had to place each individual letter on styrene, because I did not think I could ever get single letters to lay down on a woodside. The article says this caboose was only used in local service. GJSLSFFAN gave me a big surprise when he posted a picture of QA&P #53 on this thread...I wonder if he can pull THIS rabbit out of a hat?
Since this caboose will always run coupled with the markers in back I removed the Lionel coupler from that end and replaced it with a realistic one.
OK, I have redeemed myself regarding QA&P #53. The one posted above on August 2, 2022 will be jettisoned at the next train show. Thanks to gjslsffan and his photo of the real 53 seen above. This latest effort ain't exact but much closer than the previous effort. The next project will be QA&P woodside caboose #52 which was Colonial red and a coonskin emblem. P.S. That was conductor W.C. Clawson doing his delay report in the second photo while Fred Pierce holds court in the cupola in photo one.
