May 2012 Announcement

Pre-orders for these runs are now closed.
Note the artwork shown here is preliminary and subject to improvement by our crack development team! Delivery of this group is expected 2nd Quarter, 2013.

New York Central Transfer Cabooses. NYC’s Despatch Shops built this group of 150 cabooses begining in 1966. Running boards were still standard equipment at this time. They were painted Century Green with the cigar band logo. They were used all over the 11,000 mile New York Central System. 25010 New York Central #18060 $36.95; 25011 New York Central #18087 $36.95.

This month we are proud to announce the first road names on our Transfer Cabooses with running boards in N scale.All Bluford Shops cabooses come ready-to-run with magnetically operating knuckle style couplers, metal detail parts and appropriate trucks for the road name. Each road number is sold separately.

Rock Island Transfer Cabooses. Rock Island began building “shack-on-a-flat” style transfer cabooses as early as 1951. Variations in lettering placement were commonplace so we are presenting 2 variations with this run. After 1956, Rock Island cabooses could be found in either, as RI called it, “light red” which other roads might call caboose red, or “boxcar color” which was a rich brown approaching maroon. Both of these road numbers are in “boxcar color” with gray ladders and railings. 25020 Rock Island #19120 $36.95; 25021 Rock Island #19123 $36.95.

Penn Central Transfer Cabooses. Penn Central inherited New York Central’s transfer caboose fleet in the 1968 merger and continued to build cars with the same general design. In fact, Penn Central would build 350 more transfer cabooses with variations in design evolving over time, to join the ex-NYC cars in service system wide. With Penn Central’s disappearence into Conrail now 36 years behind us, this troubled giant is attracting an increasing band of fans and modelers. 25030 Penn Central #18096 $36.95; 25031 Penn Central #18124 $36.95.

Chicago Great Western Transfer Cabooses. CGW built this pair of transfer cabooses in their own shops in 1961. The CGW linked the major terminal cities of Chicago, Omaha, Kansas City and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Ownership of the CGW (these cabooses included) passed to Chicago & North Western in 1968. 25040 Chicago Great Western #177 $36.95. 25041 Chicago Great Western #178 $36.95.

Missouri-Kansas-Texas red Transfer Caboose. Katy’s caboose #5 rolled out of their shops in May of 1961. We are presenting it in red with the “KATY” shield version adopted by the John W. Barriger administration in 1965. Katy’s transfer cabooses could be found in Kansas City, Dallas-Ft. Worth, St. Louis and Katy’s main hub of Dennison, Texas. 25050 Missouri-Kansas-Texas red #5 $36.95.

Southern Transfer Cabooses. Southern Railway began building “shack-on-a-flat” style transfer cabooses in 1955. In 1960, they began recieving this combination of paint and lettering. 25060 Southern #XC22 $36.95; 25061 Southern #XC15 $36.95.

We are also taking pre-orders on the Undecorated
version of this body style. 25000 Undecorated
Transfer Caboose - with Running Board $36.95.

Products bearing Chicago Great Western, and Missouri-Kansas-Texas marks are made under trademark license from Union Pacific Railroad Company.

Pre-Orders have closed on this group Your favorite dealer may still be able to pre-order them through our distributors Walthers or Portman.