Athearn Ready To Roll™
Northeastern Four Window Caboose

Athearn Trains
1550 Glenn Curtiss Street
Carson, CA 90746
www.athearn.com

HO Scale

Ready To Roll™ Northeastern Four Window Caboose
MSRP $18.98

Available Sets:
1 road number decorated for Maine Central, Lehigh Valley (Bicentennial), Lehigh Valley (Red), Central of New Jersey

No other railroad item seems to be as prototype specific as the caboose. Each railroad's operating department seems to take an almost perverse pleasure in designing their own style of this car so that there is only a passing commonality with the designs of other carriers. Therefore, for those of us who strive to model a specific prototype railroad running the correct caboose is a must.

The 'Northeastern' caboose owes its heritage to a variation of a 1920 USRA design built by the American Car and Foundry Corporation. The Reading railroad received some of the first examples of this car type in 1924. Distinguished by its all steel riveted construction, center cupola and four side windows, this style of caboose with variations was adopted by a number of railroads operating in the Mid-Atlantic states as their standard. So successful was the design that production ran from 1924 until the final examples were produced in 1948. The 'Northeastern' became the de facto standard caboose among early adopters on the Reading, Lehigh Valley, Western Maryland and Central of New Jersey.
Either through merger or with secondary railroads that were able to acquire examples on the used market, the Northeastern caboose continued in service on over a dozen railroads until the early 1980s.

Athearn Trains is offering a version of this popular prototype in their Ready-To-Roll™ line. Originally tooled by MDC, Athearn has done a major renovation to this model. A completely new under frame: engineering plastic end railings and ladders; separately molded sill steps and flush insert clear window glass are among the numerous upgrades made by Athearn Trains. Kadee compatible knuckle couplers and NMRA gauged RP25 metal wheels as well as additional weigh have be added to the overall package. The car weighs 3.3 ounces which is close to NMRA recommended practice. In operation this caboose runs flawlessly out of the box.

Our review sample represents a Central of New Jersey caboose built in 1942 as it appeared in the early 1970s. The model is decorated in the 'Coast Guard' scheme that includes a white diagonal stripe with the statue of liberty. Overall painting and lettering is superlative and closely matches prototype photos available on the net at www.fallenflags.com and www.railroad.net/articles/railfanning/northeastcabooses. Even the smallest lettering is clearly legible on the model.

The CNJ was getting long at the tooth by the time the 'Coast Guard' scheme was adopted. There seems to be quite a bit of variation among the cabooses that received this paint scheme. This is particularly evident in roof colors. Photos show a number of variations; all black; a rusty brown which may be weathered from either red or black, merely an off color from film processing of the time or actually brown; or finally the red body color. Athearn has chosen to paint the car body roof a rich oxide brown and the cupola roof red. For anyone who has more knowledge on this subject revising the roof colors would be a simple matter. Additionally, by this time in their life, some of the side windows had been closed over with sheet metal. This varies from road number to road number and would be an easy modification for the modeler who wishes to more closely match a specific road number.

The Athearn model with all of the upgrades to the tooling is very well executed. In addition this model is a solid performer out on the rails right out of the box. While dimensionally it is not an exact match of the prototype, it reasonably captures the overall look of the Northeastern style caboose making it 'close enough' for many modelers. - George Riley