T
he Pennsylvania Railroad, known by most as the
“Standard Railroad of The World” was an innovator in
many of its practices; it standardized plans for unified
completion of locomotives, structures, and its rolling stock. This
was no different when in 1914 the PRR produced the world’s
first all-steel caboose (Cabin Car in PRR Terminology). The N5
became the major class of cabooses for use on trains through-
out the PRR system, with various modifications resulting in
subclasses from N5a through N5f, the most notable and rec-
ognizable of these being the N5b, with the easily-recognizable
additions being end-collision posts and rounded window gas-
kets, as well as the N5c with its signature “porthole” windows
and streamlined cupola. Examples of every class of these cars
worked on lines of the PRR, Penn Central and then Conrail. More
information regarding each class, rosters, and pictures can be
found on TomWolfgang’s Conrail caboose website found here:
.
To model my Conrail N5b in HO, I chose the easiest starting
model, which is produced by Bowser in plastic. I picked up
mine at low cost in an incorrect paint scheme at a hobby shop
clearance bin.
I started by making modifications to the roof. In the late 1960’s
roofwalks were removed from cars for safety reasons; my car
will have it removed, but the support stanchions left in place.
Removal of the roofwalk also meant removal of the ladder to get
there. To do this, use a #11 hobby knife blade to remove the lad-
der rung support until flush, as shown in Figure 1. Then, flip over
the roof to the curved side. Again, using a #11 blade, remove
the stanchions from the roofwalk casting and glue them in place
as if they were left when the roofwalk was removed. If some
of these are too brittle, you can also use Evergreen #8404 4x4
