It's not dead, it's just sleeping!

It's pining for the fijords.

Thought an update might be in order covering some of the twists and turns
that have come about on this project. As was noted, the wooden body was in
extremely poor condition and had to be dismantled on site before any move
could be contemplated. Over the course of about 4 weekends, the body
remains were removed, but we did work to save as much as possible for use as
patterns and such during the planned reconstruction of the body. Just about
all the metal elements were saved as well.

The plan had been to take it to a railroad in Pennsylvania, but the cost of
wide load permits (needed for NJ, DE, MD, and PA) jacked up the price of
trucking well beyond what anyone wanted to pay at the moment. So, on
Friday, 14 April, the stripped chassis was successfully moved to a temporary
home here in south Jersey where it can remain for upwards of two years and
where we can work to reconstruct the body of the caboose.

Really need to thank Rick Rowlands of the Youngstown Steel Heritage
Foundation (YSH) for handling the donation process. While not part of
Rick's YSH mission, we needed an organization which could move quickly at
the last minute to satisfy an antsy home owner. Again, this is a temporary
solution.

Also need to thank Allied Recycling for their support. A lesson learned
here is that if you need to find affordable trucking, then check with your
local scrap yard. They have trucks, experienced riggers, and are not afraid
of the unusual. The owner of Allied is allowing us to keep the chassis at
his winery here in NJ. It helps that he also owns a NYC bay window caboose
so has an eye for history as well.

Again, the plan is to begin the body work as soon as possible while looking
for that permanent home.

A couple of shots of the loading are attached.

J.R. May

I saw this thread before I joined the forum. Just wondering how it is going with the rebuild? Any caboose (or Guards Van to us Brits) deserves to be saved.

Michael

Michel:
Thank you for asking. We have been making steady progress over the past year. The frame work has been completed, the new sills (7 of them) are in place (with the help of a grant to buy the timbers), most of the windows have been restored or made from scratch, and now we are putting down the sub floor (also donated). Once the sub floor is down the new wall structure starts to go up and it looks like we have a couple of guys willing to tackle the truck work. With luck, by next year it should look something like a caboose and be on its wheels.

J.R.