Re: The Poor Cabooses

A couple notes:

0503 definitely suffered serious damage in the Sept 93 incident. It was somehow transported to Antonito and spent the 1994 season in the car shop there. I got to look underneath it and it had major damage to the sills.

At the time we were starting to talk about restoring the "caboose thing" at the end of the Antonito Yard, and we didn't know whether it was really a Rio Grande caboose. We later confirmed it was the body of 0579. Initially we were considering only a cosmetic restoration so it could be placed on the display track, but we got a strong opinion from someone who is respected here that "everything on this railroad should be able to run". We weren't sure how we would restore 0579, but we were concerned that 0503 would not be fixed so we started researching a solution. The sill damage we found on 0579 was similar to what we saw on 0503.

0503 was patched up before Kyle Railways left the property with lots of 3/8" steel, and seemed to run fine. We later decided that we could do the same with 0579, so if you are interested in how 0503 was fixed, look under 0579. I had photos of that work on my web page, that thanks to Comcast, no longer exists. I have started working on a book of that restoration, but that project has been delayed.

There would be another incident that damaged 0503 again and I have seen the description somewhere, maybe here or on the Goat.

Ultimately, the Friends completely rebuilt 0503 and I don't believe you can see any results of the 1993 or 1997 damage.

Bill Kepner