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Milwaukee Road Otter Tail Power Caboose Bash


Chuck
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Starting in 1975 the Milwaukee Road began operating the Otter Tail Power Company coal trains that ran between a coal mine in Gascoyne N.D. and a power plant in Ortonville, Minn. The Milwaukee put together 2 trains which consisted of 4 SD40's, a hundred 100 ton flat bottom high side gondola/ hoppers w/ hinged lids and 2 special cabooses. 2 trains were configured like this.

 

Pictures of this consist are a bit rare but I did find this one that may be at the load out facility.

 

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I plan on modeling a train like this in 1:29 scale and will start with the caboose.

 

Because the train was rotary dumped the Milwaukee felt they needed a caboose that was as long as the 53' coal hoppers to help "nail down" the last car.

So they made 2 - 53' long cabooses numbers 992298 & 992299.

Pictures of those are a bit rare as well.

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The last pic shows same caboose sitting on different trucks I guess for display purposes.

 

What I plan on doing is mounting a USA caboose body which I have a few extra of onto a LGB 53' flatcar using Aristo modern roller bearing freight car trucks.

 

Something like this. Won't be perfect but close enough for me to catch the "essence" of those 2 cabooses. By the time it's finished it'll be close enough.

I was going to wait until the flatcar was painted black but my local Harbor Freight is out of stock of the blasting media I use to strip the paint and rough up the car for painting.

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Locating drawings for the prototype is a bit tough as well but luckily the caboose was made in brass for HO scale and I located one to buy.

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Can't forget an oops picture :Flushed_Face_Emoji_large(24x24):

Caption said the 5 engines were shoving a train back thru a switch when engines 2 & 3 picked the points and ran onto the ground. Train on left stopped to see if they could offer some assistance.

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Those 100 ton coal hoppers they used were a bit "unique" as they were a flat bottomed high side design built in collaboration by Bechtel, Herzog and Thrall.

 

About the same design as the Union Pacific's Coal Liner and other roads Thrall design without the hinged lids.

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And those cars evolved into the Kansas City Sothern's largest coal hoppers in the world with 3 axle Buckeye trucks on each end.

The 150 ton battleship hopper. This pic is from later in life as the KCS coal contract fell through and cars were used for wodchip service.

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Here's where some were blown over by a tornado.

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4 minutes ago, Screwy Nick said:

Between this one and your 15 passenger car string you are going to have the longest trains on the block.   Keep us up on the caboose build.  

 

Yes! Something has to keep my busy considering what all is going on! :Slightly_Smiling_Face_Emoji(24x24): :Thumbs_Up_Hand_Sign_Emoji_large(24x24):

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Hi Chuck, nice theme, I still have two of these, but only the raw bodies, somedusted, not painted and no details, I'll look at how you build them. But that's 1/32. The man who built is retired.
Regards

Jan

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Jan, Those are great! I would have figured that somebody over the years would have built some of those!

I'm thinking of making them in 2 sizes. One standard size side. Then mold, cast it then cut & splice 2 together and then mold the big car which in 1:29 will be something like 36" long.

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Hi Chuck, I still found pictures, that was 2009. This was the first car, milled here, later Lasercut. Built by Michael Neidhardt, he also built them in 1/22.5 and in 1/32. What Else I'm Looking for are the ladders on the sides and the brake system. Here are some additional information:

The photos show a prototype in 1/29, the series is to be improved.
Length over coupling: 53.5 cm.
Car box length: 48.5 cm.
Width: 11.2 cm.
Height from top edge track: 12.8 cm
Weight empty approx. 1.2 kg
Material: 2mm Polystrol ( Ps )

 

Regards

Jan

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