Bluford Shops N Bay Window Caboose Kansas City Southern “Stainless Steel”

Description

Railroad Short Name: KCS

N scale models of a family of steel bay window caboose designs developed by International Car Company in the early 1950s. Over the years the design of the bay windows evolved and Bluford Shops is presenting four phases of these designs plus the iconic half-bay window edition. Ladders and running boards will be included on appropriate paint schemes for each version.

Features:

• magnetically operating knuckle couplers
• Fox Valley Models metal wheels
• wire grab irons, window “glass”
• plenty of weight
• Ladders and running boards will be included on appropriate paint schemes for each version

Kansas City Southern had sampled International Car’s Phase 1 design in the early 60’s but in 1964 they turned to Kansas City based ship and barge builder Darby Corporation for a fleet of stainless steel bay window cabooses using the Phase 1 design as a starting point. There will be 3 road numbers in the run, one of which 323 has the original road number style. The other two, 344 and 357 have larger road numbers. In prototype photos taken from some angles, it appears the larger road numbers were applied to replace the original lettering, perhaps due to adhesion problems on the stainless steel. Note the prototype cars were delivered with rare Rockwell trucks – a style that is not mass produced in any scale.