| The West Berlin Garden Railroad |
| THE PRSL TRANSFER CABOOSE |
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| These are some examples of Transfer Caboose that ran here in South Jersey. TOP: Penn-Central, Conrail, BOTTOM: Orange (Amtrak) at Rio Grande Maint. Yard, Rio Grande, NJ. |
| The Bash Begins |
| Here is the PRSL 252 in Berlin, NJ in the late 60's. The heavy duty screens on the windows are to prevent window breakage do to kids throwing rocks (which was entertainment for kids here in the 60's) at the pasting trains. Since no large scale train company makes a transfer caboose and, the PRSL is another RR that is present on the West Berlin Garden Railroad, it needed to be made. I wanted to copy this as close as I could and, with the parts I had available. Below are photos on how I did it. |
| Here in the left top of the photo you see an Aristo Sierra Circus coach. I got this for $10 and I use it for parts only. Some of it's seats are in my RDC. For this project I used the steps.(not cut in flat car body) Also you see the photo of the 252. The book I'm using for most of my PRSL projects is called "Pennsylvania - Reading Seashore Lines......In Color" by John P. Stroup, Morning Sun Books, INC. |
| This is the cab. It's made from styrene, The roof is a shorten cover from an Aristo New York Central coverd gondola. (see Conrail transfer roof photo above) The wondows were added later which are cut pieces of plastic cover with 1"x1" Frost King screen patch cut to size. The doors and windows are non-functioning of my PRSL 252..There was no need. |
| In this photo are some plastic squares that were used for the windows. The 2 window pane is a left over 4 pane Piko house window cut in half. The railings are the under carriage support rods that were removed from the Aristo Snow Plow. (see that bash on the Site Map page) They were re-bent to form part of the railings on my 252 Transfer Caboose in which all are soldered together to form the new railings.. |
| Here is the old body of the Aristo Snow plow that was cut in half and, in this photo, is being clamped together after glueing. It was extended to a 1/29 scale of 30 feet. Most transfer cabeese averaged 29 to 32 feet in length. The extention pieces are Plastruct angle pieces and the center floor was fitted with a cut plastic square. The old trucks from the snow plow were used for the caboose..Nothing goes to waste. |
| The NEW PRSL Transfer Caboose #252 waits for pick-up on the West Berlin Garden Railroad. This is a "one of a kind" caboose, made from new & left over parts. Maybe if Charles Ro of USA Trains or Lewis Polk of Aristo Craft made these...even in limited quanities, it would sell, but until that happens, I have a unique piece of rolling stock. |
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| John P Stroup Photo |
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