Model Railroading > Burlington Northern Iron Range Caboose #11470

As a fan of both ore operations in Northern Minnesota and the merger era BN, I wanted a signature caboose to run on a local freight. Several years back, one of the Great Northern iron range cabooses made by Overland became available on ebay. After doing a bit of research, I found that this would be a perfect piece for the collection, as the prototype was assigned to the Kelly Lake local.

The model sat on the shelf while I collected information on the prototype. Images of the caboose in BN green paint were relatively simple to find but I wanted to model it in BN patches. That's when I hit a dead end. I scoured every corner of the internet for two years looking for something, even a grainy image which showed patch configurations, color, etc. I was about to move forward with the model, patching it as BN had patched the other all-Red cabooses. Boy, am I glad I didn't. Through the Ore Rail Yahoo! group, I met Jeff Lemke, the owner of Twin Ports Rail History (a great resource for anything and everything rail related in Duluth/Superior) . He not only had a picture but a very interesting story to tell. It can be found in the archives of the aforementioned group but here's a snipit:

"I did a story on this car for the Twin Ports Post many many moons ago, assisted Jack Porzig with his GNRHS ref sheet on this car, and was able to track it down after it was retired but still on the BN property after its mishap at the National Pellet Plant in Keewatin which is why it was retired in the first place. That was conductor Emil Blazina's personal caboose that the GN made for him for use on the Kelly Lake Local and survived in that role for a good long time before its unfortunate accident."

It turns out that the patches used on #11470 were a dark red, somewhere between boxcar and oxide. With the photo in hand, I went to work prepping, patching and decaling the model. All decals used were made by Microscale which came from several different BN and lettering sets, along with trim film. I added Kadee prototype couplers, air hoses and weathered the model as shown in Jeff's image. Window glass rounded out the effort. Photos of the model are below. Because of the rarity of the prototype image, Jeff asked that I not share it publicly so you'll have to take my word that the model faithfully represents the prototype as seen in 1973.

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For those of you interested, I put this model on fleabay for auction. You can search kdfilb.

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myoungwisc Wrote:
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> I wanted a signature caboose to run on a local freight.

> For those of you interested, I put this model on
> fleabay for auction. You can search kdfilb.

These seem to be contradictory statements. The modeling is nice, but if its your signature piece why are you parting with it? Or, is this just a thinly veiled advertisement?

- Jeff Carlson

Jeff, nice call. I didn't feel that going into the story of why I'm selling it was relevant to this list but knew the model could find a great home here on TO.

Hope springs eternal and I'm sure ill get the opportunity to model this caboose again, when club soccer and dance aren't as much of a household priority!

Martin

What are the two boxes and stacks behind the cupola? Nice looking model BTW!

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Ted,

These could be those propane catalytic electric generators like the MILW used. There should be propane tanks on the underbody to power these.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

I was thinking it must get cold out that way. Two heaters in case one fails while on the road. Nice weathering job, not too heavy but realistic enough.