I was recently able to purchase a modified Lionel OO caboose which matches perfectly three hopper cars I had obtained from Bill Gilbert, a great set of four kitbashed American OO freight cars. First up is the caboose.

After I won the auction the seller contacted me as the smokestack had broken off in packing the model. No problem, I could fix that! He relayed one aside, that when it was for sale he got questions related to the listing saying it could not be not a Lionel caboose, it had that extra window. In my case though, that is exactly why I bought it, it looked like a carefully modified Lionel OO caboose! Which it is, and very neatly done. The builder (I think Bill Gilbert) added the window to match an N&W prototype. I found easily online photos of for example an N&W class C-2 caboose with very similar proportions and that extra window on one side. The model itself had one quirk; I believe it was always a shelf model. Because one truck had three rail wheelsets and the other two rail! I had to work over that truck to set it up for running on the layout.

The first of the matching cars are these two three-bay hoppers. They are Schorr models but with modified ends. On a stock Schorr three bay hopper the end is rounded, and these have been modified to match N&W practices. Also note (it is hard to see) he has added a few other nice details such as painting the ends of the air hoses silver to imitate the connectors that would be there.

Finally we also have this nice Schorr two-bay hopper car. Again the car is detailed nicely and like the others also has a nice custom coal load and the modified ends.

It would be a shame not to run these cars! My layout is generic enough that these N&W models don’t look too out of place and these are all great OO models, very happy to have them.