The Tridaily Doorstop -- Bob's Mexicano Electric

[R.K. Maroon]

Here is the underside of the Lobaugh ATSF stock car:



Collectors would sniff a bit at this, as the frame has been cut to install Kadee couplers. I have decided not to worry about it one way or the other. I generally fool with couplers and trucks only if there is an operational problem with the car as it is.

One thing to note here is the presence of Faber trucks on this car. They are Lobaugh look-alikes. Merle Faber was a supplier of pressed brass parts. Lobaugh used them by the box full, but Faber also sold their parts separately, along with a line of cars. The Faber trucks have a leveling leaf spring under the bolster (visible in photo) that impinges on the rollers that are under the sideframe screws. The idea was to minimize side-to-side rocking. I have never experimented with them to see how well they actually work. But I do have operating cars with these trucks installed.

[bob turner]

I love cattle cars - I brought a selection home tonight and will do a photo shoot, while the sun is up.

[bob turner]

Yep - here we go:



Left is Lobaugh40'; right is Scale Craft. Lobaugh had all kinds of different cars, including a double deck poultry car.

[bob turner]

That door is just sticks, but Lobaugh made really well detailed cast aluminum doors:

[R.K. Maroon]

Bob is correct about the doors. Unlike the other manufacturers of cast stock cars, Lobaugh provided the door separately from the car side. That makes it easier to customize the car if desired, as Bob's example shows.

Lobaugh introduced the stock car in 1937 (along with many other freight cars -- it was a good year for them). Here is the catalog listing from that year:



The 36' car is mentioned, but a photo doesn't appear until the next catalog:



I don't believe a photo of the 36' SP stock car ever appeared in a catalog, but I do have a set of instructions for one:



Note that the sides are the same as the PRR version but the doors are not. Another example of the advantages of providing the door as a separate casting.

I have not seen a Lobaugh double-deck poultry car. O-scale double-deck stock cars and poultry cars of any sort were not common before the war, and not really any more common in the years after.

[De Bruin]

Downtown RMCA club has one of these, at least it has the cast metal sides and is quite heavy for it's size.

Sorry for the crappy photo, it's from our inventory records

[robert.]

Who had $7.00 to spend in 1937?

[bob turner]

That's why they are rare and collectible. Here is a 36 footer:



And Steve Neill had a poultry car, and lent it to me for patterns - Allan Wehrle (RIP) cast a pair of sides from them for me. I need to assemble thenm some day - here is one of the sides. Allan had trouble with the doors -
I miss his foundry, and of course we lost a really good contributor and modeler.



It may be upside down, and indeed may be for pigs, not poultry.

[R.K. Maroon]

Thanks for posting the photos, Bob. The unassembled and unpainted car side shown in the last photo is very revealing. Here it is again:



The presence of the "bumps" half-way up and all the way down the car side looked familiar. The light bulb finally went off: those are the car sides used in the Lobaugh PRR stock car:



You can just read the car type designation in the lower left as "K8". A quick internet search reveals that to be a double-deck car:



The bumps are the joists for the upper floor, which you can see in the builder's photo above.

So Bob was correct: Lobaugh did offer a double-deck car. Note also that my contention that the cars side of the SP and PRR 36' cars were the same was not correct. They do appear to be very similar though, which makes me wonder if the joist details (the bumps) were added or removed from the pattern depending on which car they were casting. A side-by-side comparison would be needed.

[bob turner]

Did you do Cabeese yet? This one came from Don Massy, of Northern California. Don took pretty good care of me at past O Scale West meets, sending me home with Scale Craft K4s and Pearce 0-8-0s for really good prices. I got this for 2-railing his Lionel B6:



I am sure it was a kit, and it is really well done. Note no splits in the scribed siding.

[E7]

Did you do Cabeese

Bob, You're waaaay too old to be spelling like an idiot millennial. No such word! The plural is cabooses.

Shame on you!

[R.K. Maroon]

This one came from Don Massy, of Northern California. I got this for 2-railing his Lionel B6

I never met Don, but in 2016 he wrote me regarding Lionel semi-scale cars and their conversion to 2-rail operation. I had not heard of these cars before. He later sent me a few of them along with a couple of Scale-Craft cars. We talked several times on the phone. He was 90 at that time, living in Yuba City (as I recall) and looking for a home for some of his models. Super nice guy.

Did you do Cabeese yet?

I don't have much in the way of a method to this thread, in regards to what models I post and when. I am instead simply mixing things up as I go. I have posted one caboose so far (as the list on page one indicates). This would be the SMR NYC caboose, which was #15. I have other doorstop cabeese and will list one here and there as part of the mix.

Jim

[bob turner]

I debated, knowing that you have an aversion to that particular plural. However, I consider it mildly humorous, and maybe even partially grammatically correct, so I am standing firm, and changing the name of my "cabooses" file to cabeese, in your honor.

Here is another without splits in the sides - this one from Hal Sharkey, a serious scratchbuilder from Newport Beach, now long gone. It has Martin's favorite trucks:

[robert.]

Webster’s dose not recognize the word “ cabeese” you’ll only find it in a 3 rail dictionary.

[ScaleCraft]

Cabeese. That's the way it is.
Unless yer from the South, then it's y'caboose.

Whatreya, new?