Re: Silverton Northern Caboose Update

We have a planer/moulder machine so had knives made to match the pattern. The car siding was also used for the main roof and cupola roof. The Sumpter Valley has a D&RGW RPO car that I looked at 2 summers ago and it still had its original siding and it matched the SN caboose exactly and both cars were built by the D&RG in about the same time period. We used Poplar for the wood, oak for the underframe and end beams (actually untreated railroad tie oak), pine for side framing, same as original, and the Poplar as being easy to run and knot free. I took a picture of the original car siding at

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and the leading edge has a sharp break that butts up against the 90 degree corner of the next board. This gives a much tighter looking groove and much less pronounced look than what most car restorations I've seen look like. Freight cars are another matter completely. The coarser V groove look is great on HO models, but the boys 134 years ago wanted highly finished surfaces on passenger cars, and apparently cabooses as well. See this contemporary picture of a D&RG car for what passenger car siding should look like, and not the punch press metal siding the D&RGW used on the new steel cars of the 1960s.

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Fritz