This week, just under two years from when we first told you about a 1:20.3 caboose to complement the K-27 and 1:20.3 rolling stock from
Bachmann Trains, we finally received our
1:20.3 Long Caboose.
While there have been several reports on the various Internet forums from modelers who received their cabooses before
1:20.me, we’re still going to take this opportunity to do our very own up close look at this long
anticipated piece of rolling stock.
No Standing Back RequiredWhat stands out most on first look is the high degree of detail packed into this car. The wood siding boards have varied grain from one board to another. The handbrake has all of its parts, ratchet, pawl, and chain, and the brake gear is present on the undercarriage.
Exposed pipes and bolts have threads, and the cupola windows slide fore and aft. There are
NO gaps where the walls meet the deck, or where the cupola meets the roof. Safety chains adorn the end rails, and cut levers are functional at each end.
The journal box covers on our example were fixed firmly in place; no lost parts along the right-of-way from this caboose! Some of the best magic, though, requires stepping
inside.
The interior of the caboose is fully detailed, and to a level never before seen in 1:20.3 mass produced models. Just the view through the open door (did we mention the doorknobs and latches are
functional?) makes it feel like one might step inside and start the coffee:
Ceiling, floor, and walls are fully planked. Bunks, benches, desk and seat, washbasin with water tank, lockers, and stove – everything in its place, and from the knurled grip on the faucet of the water tank to the brake gauge and emergency brake valves in the cupola to the dimpled and buttoned upholstery on the seats,
it’s all here!
A previously unseen arrangement allows the user to remove the interior walls completely by means of several concealed screws, meaning that repainting, and changing interior details will be made easy, no matter where the modeler wishes to work.
We’d say “modelers wanting to
superdetail” here, but beyond the personal touches, updates, and the ravages of time, weather, and grime a modeler might like to add, the caboose appears to be highly detailed enough to qualify for the usual meaning of that word right out of the box.
Raising the Roof There are some odd points to consider on this model. To access the interior features of the caboose, the roof must be removed. Detailed instructions come with the model, and instruct the modeler to remove four tiny screws in the rear ladder, which allows the curved rails of the ladder above the roofline to be removed. From there, the roof slides backward approximately ½ inch, which disengages the hooks that hold it onto the body, allowing the roof to be lifted away. The difficulty here is that at each end of the car, the roof ladder is also attached to the underside of the roof by means of two pins, which cannot be disengaged without lifting the roof upward.
So, even if the modeler removes the ladder ends, it’s still necessary to flex both end ladders (and thereby, the end rails of the caboose) toward the rear of the car when removing the roof, and again to “start” the pins when replacing it. Because it’s necessary to flex the ladders in any case, we chose to leave the upper ladder rails in place and carefully slide the roof out sideways from under the curved sections in an effort to avoid lost parts.
Down to the Wire
Once the roof has been removed, the modeler can access the electronics on the car. There are two “marker lamps” on the exterior of one end of the car, and two “hurricane lamps” inside the car, all of which are equipped with LED lights. These are wired to a circuit board found under the cushion of the bench seat on the side with the stove.
There are two wires from each truck, two wires to each lamp, and two wires to the battery box under the bench seat adjacent to the conductor’s desk. All fourteen wires terminate on the circuit board found under this bench, and there is a socket (equipped with a dummy plug) where a decoder with an 8 pin plug of the type common in the smaller scales could be installed.
This circuit board also has two switches that extend below the car body, one of which selects track power (DC or DCC,) power off, or battery powered lights, and the other of which selects whether the marker lamps, interior lighting, or both are activated.
It’s not clear from the documentation supplied with the model what the decoder does when installed, but it appears that it will allow the DCC user to turn the two sets of lamps on and off remotely, as there is a caution in the instructions that instructs DCC users to be certain to leave the selector switch in the position to choose the marker lights only, as non-Bachmann decoders will not work correctly in other positions.
Battery users will find a compartment beneath the conductor’s desk side bench seat into which two “AA” batteries can be installed to power the lighting. The compartment is opened by sliding the conductor’s seat (and thereby the whole bench top) forward, which unlocks the compartment and allows the top to be lifted out. Instructions supplied with the car illustrate all of these procedures, as well as providing “exploded” diagrams and the wiring color code. We should also note here, that the track pickups on this caboose are different from any seen previously; gone are the “wiper contacts” that proved problematic on other manufacturers’ cars, and instead the axle is insulated, and power is picked up from the axle ends. This means that the car rolls a great deal more freely than other lighted cars we’ve seen in the past – an improvement that will no doubt be appreciated by many who previously had the choice of removing the pickups to reduce drag, and having no lights, or leaving them and running shorter trains. And, for those wanting to “do their own thing” with respect to wiring, the common termination point and provided documentation should make it relatively easy to do so.
Nuts and Bolts
The incredibly high level of detail on this model presents something of a paradox when it comes to prototype fidelity. We have already received notes from several readers about the number and placement of window shades, color of grabirons, end platforms, and roof walks, and other points about the caboose visible in the many photos that have begun to crop up as it arrives in the hands of modelers. For example, the grabirons on this model are the same color as the body of the car. We made some inquiries, and discovered that up to some point in the 1930’s, the D&RG painted the metal parts of their cabooses black. By 1939, though, the white (or silver/hi-heat aluminum) color had appeared, and toward the very end, certainly in the late 1960’s, some cabooses had been repainted a basic red, with only minimal numbers and reporting marks. Window shades, etc. also appeared, and disappeared on some cars, and while originally the roof walks would have been left unpainted (by rule; this allowed for less slippery walkways for brakemen) the modern version, with brakemen forever banned from the roof, may very well be painted to preserve the wood.
With so many variations over the years, even on individual units, and the differences between these similar, but certainly not mass produced cars, it becomes difficult to mass produce one model that incorporates everything. What Bachmann has produced is detailed enough to make these subtle differences stand out. Fortunately it’s easy to paint a grabiron here, remove a window shade there, paint a deck or a walkway, or whatever other little changes the modeler might need to make the car match a favorite car at the desired point in its history.
One interesting exception to this is the marker lights; as shipped, they display green to the rear, with three red lenses, which appear a bright orange color when illuminated from within, probably because the LED's are an orange/amber color, which can be seen when the interior "hurricane lamps" are illuminated; this orange color plus the red filter on the lamp produces the deep orange color seen when the marker is illuminated.
Historically, these would have had one red lens and three yellow, with red displayed to the rear except when the car was on a train clear of the main line in a siding, when yellow would have been displayed. Of course, there are several easy ways to reorient the lamps to display red to the rear that have been already posted in the various forums, but the green color was bothersome. We’ve heard from a Denver and Rio Grande historian, however, who tells us that some time in the 1960’s, that particular railroad switched to marker lamps with three green and one red lens, which is at least closer to the lamps supplied by Bachmann. In any case, there are many easy options for changing lamp colors should the modeler choose to do so. On our sample, filing off the small ridge that orients the round lamp shell allows us to rotate the four lenses in place, displaying either red or green without removing the lamp from the car body.
Conclusions
More than ten years ago, Bachmann changed the rules in large scale narrow gauge railroading when they released the highly detailed Two Truck Shay, putting affordable, mass produced models that were accurately scaled for 3 foot gauge on 45 mm gauge track into the hands of narrow gauge modelers. With the release of this caboose, they have done so again.
The caboose is more highly detailed than brass cognates at a fraction of the price (there are some retailers where one can obtain one for a price comparable to the AMS plastic short caboose) and the exterior and interior detail exceeds any mass produced rolling stock model we’ve seen to date. Technologically, Bachmann appears to have returned to the philosophy of using technology to enhance the model, instead of using the model to showcase the technology – and for this we applaud them!
To Bud Reece, and the as yet officially unnamed artist/model master who obviously put a great deal of thought and work into this project over the last two years and beyond, our congratulations, and our thanks. We are certain modelers will want one.
Had more than one road number in each type been available, we may have even said, for the first time in our history, “Durango Dan Says BUY TWO!”
