Re: KC brake systems sizes

When we acquired Colorado & Southern Bobber (short) caboose 1008 in 2001 we found that all of her metal parts had been removed, most likely in 1942 when she was retired. We have been looking for and building replacement parts ever since. Fortunately 2 of these cars still exist, 1006 in Silver Plume, Colorado and 1009 at the Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden, Colorado. 1006 was donated to the town of Silver Plume by the C&S and she has retained almost all of her original parts. While there are some differences between the 1008 and 1006 from what we can tell the brake systems are basically the same (almost, the cylinder and reservoir on 1008 are mounted on the left side of the car while 1006 and 1009 are on the right). The American Safety Appliance Act required all cars to have more than hand brakes so the C&S began fitting air brakes on their cars. When they got to these small light weight cars they found the 8”x10” cylinder/reservoir units which were used on most cars at that time would not fit between the 9’-1” wheel base and installed a smaller 8”x 8” cylinder/reservoir units on these cars. Although we searched everyplace we could think of we couldn’t find an 8”x 8” unit that wasn’t mounted on a car and only a very few of these. So at the recommendation of our good friend Chris DeWitt at the Nevada State Railroad Museum we built our own.