Athearn Bay Window Caboose

Athearn Bay Window Caboose Athearn Bay Window Caboose...
Athearn makes a bay window caboose that you should avoid if you are looking for an accurate Chessie model right out of the box. The Athearn model is based on a Southern Pacific Railroad prototype, not Chessie. The large windows on the sides are in the wrong places. Below are two Dean Heacock pics that demonstrate the proper window placement on B&O and C&O (one order #904094-904159) C-26 or C-27 class cabooses (bay windows). Please feel free to buy the Athearn kit if you like them. I have three Athearn bay window models, one is actually a Bev-Bel products from an Athearn kit. The other two both came with safety schemes in the Athearn "Chessie Safety Caboose" limited edition set, and I didn't want to strip them and ruin the nice factory applied paint job. They make good stand in cabooses for now, until I get better ones. Expect to pay $4-5 for an undecorated kit and $5-6 for a decorated one. Don't pay more than that. Train shows and swap meets have tons of these kits. They are very easy to come by.

Below are my two cabeese from the Athearn limited edition set. Notice one is from each side, and neither matches the window placement on the real pics above. To correct the problem you would need to take the extra window on the right of the yellow caboose below and bring it around and place it in the middle of the other two (where the cat logo is on the blue caboose below). The window on the end are also different. One end has no windows and one has a small window. Look at more pics on Dean's site to get a good plan of what needs to be done. Also some bay windows came with roof walks, others did not. Make sure you get a pic before you decide to put yours on or not. B&O bay window roofs rusted like crazy, so make sure yours is a dark rust color. The bottom of the sill needs to be removed too and replaced with a straight piece. I just painted the bottom grey to try and give it a more prototypical appearance (see pics above for what the piece should look like). Fixing this too would have caused damage to the factory yellow or blue paint. I will fix this flaw on ones I do from undecorated kits.