January 2023 Restoration Update
Caboose #21292 finally arrived at the Port Jervis Transportation History Center on December 11, 2022. While it’s been largely too cold to start any major restoration work on the car itself, we’ve begun laying the groundwork for work to commence in earnest in the spring of 2023.
On January 16th, we visited the car to take some measurements and photos of the windows and gaskets. Every window on the car - 15 in total - is either broken or missing entirely and will need to be replaced with FRA Type I and Type II glazing where appropriate. We also have the original 1978 window diagrams from J. T. Nelson Company, and we have supplied both the diagrams and our photos/measurements to Dynamic Metals LLC of Elkhart, Indiana. The folks at Dynamic Metals came to us highly recommended by DeAndre Walters, who used their services and copies of the original J. T. Nelson diagrams to have new aluminum frames, gaskets, and glass fabricated for his Conrail N7D caboose #21112, located on the Adirondack Railroad in Utica, New York.
While we were at the car, we took the opportunity to string up some temporary LED lights, which will be used until we get the car rewired for 110V AC and install some new permanent light fixtures. This gives us our first good look at the interior of the car since we boarded up the windows in May of 2022. We are planning on replacing all of the interior walls with a different material, as the current walls are a porous fiberglass compound that holds mildew and moisture.
While it has been too cold to work on the car itself, we’ve been able to start sourcing some of the smaller parts and pieces we need. In January, we acquired an antique caboose whistle for the car, and we also acquired and restored a replacement for the broken air brake gauge in the car. While the original was from New York Air Brake, our restored antique Ashcroft gauge will work perfectly in its place!
We also acquired a pair of Pyle National-style marker lamps. While Conrail didn’t use this exact spherical style of lamp (to our knowledge), the aluminum casings mean very limited maintenance. While these were originally 12V lamps, we were able to rewire them for 110V and install LEDs. We then built a handy wooden storage bracket for them, which is currently mounted on the wall in our house until we have a spot for it inside the caboose itself. These lamps fit the existing marker/flag brackets on all four corners of the caboose, and will be used on the rear whenever the caboose is in service on a train. (NOTE: We may also restore or replace the original large red Star marker lights on the car, but these give us an interim - and classier - option.)
Finally, we’ve contracted with Adams & Westlake Ltd. (better known as Adlake) to produce new door handles for the two end doors on the caboose. One handle was missing entirely, and the inner workings of the other was broken. Using the broken one, we were able to determine a suitable drop-in replacement from Adlake’s historic catalog, with the addition of a skeleton key lock for added security. Adlake is casting two new latch/lock/handle assemblies for us from their original 1960 patterns, and these parts should be arriving to us in March.
We’re hoping to start some more in-depth restoration work on the interior of the car in the spring - stay tuned for more!
