Caboose SLSF 1291

Glad to finally see that green paint come off ! Shady photo, the sun never seems to be in the right place at the right time on these caboose pics !

 

Really neat, I'll be moving soon, hopefully I will be able to come and look. This is exciting that you are restoring these.

 

Ken, I have never liked green on a caboose either ! 1291 left the factory in July of 69 wearing freight car red Frisco paint, she kept her original factory paint job until 4-84 when it was painted gangrene with the vomit yellow ends. I am so happy the green is gone, and even happier to see that yellow disappear. Will be great being freight car red again with all the original logos back on. The only good thing about that green and yellow paint, is that BN painted her with Imron paint and it protected the metal extremely well for 31 years, no rust pits anywhere on 1291. William that will be great when you get a chance to drop by, even though we like to argue back and forth about politics on fb, we know its just in fun ! haha

 

Today we primed all the surface we blasted, only green paint left is about half of one long body side and the roof. Tomorrow we paint the trucks, and Tuesday the body will be placed back on the trucks. Now we have a building to work in so I am pretty excited. If the weather holds good through the weekend we will blast the remaining green and finish priming. Within the next few weekends we should get the frame painted black and start fitting the hardwood floors in. Fun stuff !

 

"Like" is not nearly a strong enough word to express how I feel about these updates. We need a "love" button to click. Paul, this is just amazing. I may have to bump out to Tulsa to take a closer look. I'll tell the wife I got forced!

 

Thanks Ryan ! I am having so much fun with this, it seems surreal. Several years went by and I studied this site for the locations of surviving 1200s and just kept on dreaming about restoring one of these, and I wondered if it was even possible to buy one from a city.....I guess I felt like the cities that had these were just as much in love with them as I was. Finally one day I decided to just go for it, and here we are now, I was honestly surprised at how willing the cities were to part with their cabooses. 1291 has been in Tulsa for a year and a half now and I am happy with the progress being made, some of the work is a lot more intensive than I expected but that is normal I suppose. Blasting , priming, and painting is a major deal more than I expected. It is time consuming and the amount of primer and paint is tremendous. 14 gallons of primer so far and were not done yet ! I wanted to paint the trucks this week and set the body back on, but it has been too cold. The air temp needs to be at least 50 degrees to apply the paint and its been several degrees colder, but it looks like we have a window for paint on Friday this week, so hopefully the body will go back on next week. I love posting the progress pics here, hopefully more will go up next week with a primed body sitting on freshly painted trucks. Ryan when you bump on out to Tulsa, drop by again !

 

Neat stuff, I enjoy the photo's.

 

I got a break in the weather and finally painted the trucks on Jan 8. Rolled them out of the shed today, took a pic from both sides, funny how much contrast exists in both images in relation to the sun. Reminds me of that caption on page 72 in the book "Frisco in Color" by Louis Marre and Gregory Sommers about Black holes being entities that swallow light ! We have a crane scheduled in the morning Jan 12 to put the body back on her trucks. At that point I will feel like the pendulum will change directions from tear down and rebuild to finish work. I know we still have a great amount of work to do, but I also feel like a great amount has been done. Fun stuff for sure, cant wait to get pics of the caboose in one piece again tomorrow.

 

Paul, when I was looking through my Frisco N scale releases matrix last night I realized that Atlas made cabooses with your road numbers. They're for sale on eBay right now. However 1288 is painted in boxcar red but there's a orange/white model available with road number 1280. All you would need to do is change the last number. 1280 is for sale on eBay also.

Joe

 

The item numbers for the cabooses are:

1288 item 390833841041 for $21.95

1291 item 381494160613 for $25.65

1280 item 380260933327 for $25.65

Joe

 

Thanks Joe. I spotted those at a train show a couple years ago and picked them up. Windows are all wrong but they have really nice paint jobs so I couldn't resist !

 

1291 was placed back on the wheels today, glad to see it back together after 20 months since it left Exeter Mo. Hopefully the sandblasters will be back in the next few weeks to finish off the remaining green paint. Now we can repair all the bent and broken brackets that hold all the brake rigging in place, will require about 40 hours and two men, the frame is high enough off the ground now that we have room to work now. I think when 1291 was hauled into Exeter all the brackets were bent up because of the way she was hauled (there is a pic earlier in this thread) After that we can paint the frame and start laying down the oak floors. At the end of the day we rolled 1291 into the shed, nice to have her out of the weather.

 

She's really looking good. I love following along but can't wait until she is finished.

 

Great job Paul!!! Would it be possible to come by tomorrow so my wife and I can see the cabooses?

Joe