To end the recent series of photos we have for review two beautiful vintage American OO cabooses by Howard Winther. Both models must date to the mid to late 1930s.

First up is this Erie caboose. As we have four nice photos of this model. It was beautifully scratchbuilt, and judging from the photos I can’t spot any obvious commercial parts, although I would guess the wheelsets might have been purchased.

The trucks are of his home made design and the couplers are his home made couplers, as seen on other Winther cars already featured. It took some real skill and effort to build this car.

As an aside, in recent correspondence with Ted Winther he mentioned that the only power tools used by his father were a small lathe, a drill press, and a grinder. He actually had made his own dies for a number of the parts he cast. The skills he had are far beyond those of the average model railroader of today. Far beyond me for sure.

Back to these cars, the lettering, with the exception of what looks to be a printed Erie logo, was all done by hand, including the very small “safety first” lettering on the steps. Beautiful work, and a perfect match for his Erie Berkshire, which was featured in Model Railroader in 1936.

The other car featured today is this beautiful bobber caboose. These are only rarely seen in OO (there was no kit ever produced for this model) and this has to be one of the nicest around. The car looks again to be totally scratchbuilt with only the possible exception of wheelsets, and it should be another early one as it has his home made couplers. I certainly don’t see any obvious commercial parts and again it is neatly hand lettered.

I will have more Winther photos in the fall but with this post will need to take a bit of a break from American OO Today. I will have one final post later this week and then will take a break until August. Be looking for more then.