In some recently purchased items was this yellow caboose. It is Scale-Craft, and was painted (somewhat heavily) and had never been decaled. As I looked at it, I thought of various options.

Going way back in my model railroading, one of my first projects I remember that was a big disappointment was I painted a caboose yellow. Yellow is hard to paint, it went on real heavy, not happy with the results. This SC caboose looked rather like what the result might have been if I painted it years ago. Not terrible, but not a great paintjob.

Searching images of yellow cabooses, I found the Nevada Northern has a caboose number 6, so that became the number. I thought about lettering it for the Newton Northern to match an engine I had, but that did not feel right. Finally, I decided to letter it for the Fall River.

The Fall River?

This was one of my early freelance lines and was my original OO line. It is a river near where my parents grew up in Kansas, and my freelanced line followed it up into the Flint Hills. I had never done an OO caboose for it, although I did do two engines and a stock car back in the day.

With the lettering on it now the model really looks a lot like if I had actually made a SC caboose for the Fall River back in 1980. I did upgrade it with North Yard trucks so it will roll well, and it will be used on the layout for sure, a nice change from all the red cabooses.