Category Archives: Caboose Project and Other Trains

John finished printing out all of the pages and copies needed for our
formal application to San Jose city planning to move our WP668 caboose
into our backyard and hook it up to utilities. The application materials
he developed are printed on very large sheets of paper (24″ x 36″) and
include maps, satellite views, street photos, site diagrams, blueprints,
descriptions of what is there now and what is proposed, etc. The whole
package required by the city comes out to 350 square feet of paper. This is
more than twice the floor size of my office here at Sun.
John is scheduled to present it downtown on Halloween, next week. Then,
we go through a formal hearing process.
We were going to present the application this week but we ran into scheduling
conflicts, including getting ready for my father’s 80th birthday party this
weekend.

When I tell people about our caboose project, those from outside of the US
often ask What’s a Caboose?. Check out
Wikipedia for a full
description but basically, a caboose is a manned railroad transport vehicle
at the end of a freight train.

Our caboose, WP668 (meaning number 668 caboose from the WP or Western
Pacific Feather River Railway line), was built by Pullman in 1916 as a boxcar,
converted to caboose service during World War II (1943), and retired in
1977. She was acquired by the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum (GGRM) in San Francisco, and finally sold to us
earlier this year. Here is the picture of WP668 from the GGRM web site:

John went to City Hall again yesterday to discuss the permits for
the final phase of the WP668 caboose move and utilities hook up. The
representative of the planning department reviewed our application
materials and approved them for formal submission next week – Hooray!
John also made the formal submission to the water district.
Both organizations said everything looks good. We still have
to go through the rest of the special permitting process with the
planning department but so far, so good.

The application materials we have been developing are printed on very
large sheets of paper (24″ x 36″) and include maps, satellite views,
street photos, site diagrams, blueprints, descriptions of what is there
now and what is proposed, etc.

I went by the
Project Blackbox announcement in Sun’s parking lot today. I even
collected one of the nifty toy trucks with a Sun Blackbox as the trailer.
It is sitting on my desk next to my red HO-scale model caboose.
The prototypes for these two models have much in common.

Having worked on a caboose-which-will-be-my-office for about
nine months now, using a shipping container as a virtualized datacenter
makes good sense to me. A caboose was originally a mobile office (including
self contained records and records storage on the train’s cars and cargo)
as well as a rest area for the crew. A railroad caboose contained
much smaller amounts of information than a modern data center.
However, like a Sun Blackbox shipping container, a caboose was a
large, heavy, largely self-contained, robust, yet mobile container for
storing complex units of information in a form which could be swapped
in or out quickly (as needed with every car coming into or leaving
the train).

The WP668 caboose roof was finished on Saturday and it started
to rain on Sunday – good timing!

We ended up adding another
two rows of wooden stringers parallel to the ridge boards
on top of the steel joists. My husband John and our neighbor
Felix (a professional roofer) also replaced wood
that was soft or damaged. About 2/3 of the original wood of
the roof structure was still good.

After fixing the framework, John and Felix stuffed insulation battens
between the steel joists, put rigid foam insulation panels on
top of the battens, and added a reflective silver lining on top
of that. Over the silver lining went sheets of plywood which
was then covered by tarpaper (roofing felt). The final layer
of roofing will go over the tarpaper after the caboose moves so
it isn’t damaged in the crane lift.

What is in place already is water tight. WP668 has
its best roof and first insulation since it was built
90 years ago. It will be well lit and dry inside while we work on it
this winter. We hope all of the insulation will help us avoid
air conditioning except during the hottest weeks of the summer.

It started to rain yesterday afternoon for the first time since
late spring. The kids and I ran around the yard dragging things
under cover that had been sitting out all summer.

Here are the latest photos:

John on roof:

Starting insulation:

John and Felix:

Felix:

Half insulated:

Josh inspecting:

Truck, caboose:

Tar paper down:

Final check:

Images by John Plocher and Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)

John and our neighbor Felix (who has his roofer’s license) have been
working on the caboose roof all day today. We realized last weekend
that we had to redesign the original roof framework. The 1916 WP668
roof was painted canvas over a wood and steel framework. It only had
to bear weight down the middle of the roof where railworkers would walk.
We will be putting both heavier roofing down and potentially walking
on the edges.

John and Felix got most of the remaining insulation and framework in
today as well as most of the plywood sheathing. We had many discussions
on how to handle ventilation, heating, and cooling. We will have a
stovepipe for the gas stove eventually but we do not need it until the
caboose is in active use during a cold season (probably next winter).
The question for this weekend will be whether we frame in the place for
the stovepipe or not.

We have been shopping on the net for gas stoves just to see what the
clearances and installation requirements are. There are many stove
designs available. We had planned to convert the antique pot belly
stove we own to gas but some research indicated that while this was
possible, it was probably not safe or insurable. So, we are now
looking around for a modern free standing small gas stove with a
suitably antique design.

John and Paul worked on the caboose roof yesterday. Of course, the job was
more complex than anticipated.

Before we bought the WP668 caboose, the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum (GGRM) had started
work to replace her roof. They had gotten as far as tearing off some of
the roof boards and cutting some replacement edge boards when they got word
that the museum had to move out of San Francisco’s Hunter’s Point. WP668
was pushed out of the shop to make way for more urgent projects. She had been
sitting in the rain for about four months when we bought her.

The edge boards cut by GGRM came with WP668 when we bought her and John was
able to use half of them yesterday. He got the first board bolted down when
he saw that the steel under it needed work. He unbolted the board and ground
the rust off the 40 foot steel roof edge then painted the edge with rust
preventative. Each side of the caboose roof edge needs three boards bolted
down. John got one side done but thinks he will take the boards up again
and put caulk between the wood and the steel. We are seeing a great many
yellowjackets buzzing around and we don’t want them nesting in the roof
once it is on. Caulking the gaps may help keep them out.

John also got some of the insulation batting down. We want to have rigid
foam insulation panels on top of the batting but we went to two stores and
neither had any. We are going to insulate and roof over where the stovepipe
will go for now since we haven’t found anyone who can sell us the right roof
flashing for a stovepipe.

We gave a newly-lighted caboose tour to both my brother and mother yesterday.
My brother, who successfully completed the

“Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim” from Alcatraz island to San Francisco on
Saturday without a wetsuit, braving Great White Sharks, currents, and the
cold, still thinks our caboose project is crazy. There’s all kinds of crazy.

We were working on our WP668 caboose all day today.

WP668 Today:

Other Side:

Door to Door:

John finished the ceiling wiring, we adjusted the can light fixtures, put
in bulbs, turned on the generator, and everything worked! The soft row
of new lights down the center of the ceiling look great. They blend in
well with the original lines of the room.

Before Light:

Fiat Lux:

Prometheus:

The next project was to finish tearing off the original fir tongue-and-groove
roof boards, then remove all of the roof nails and tar paper. This was my job.
I sat on the stringers and ridge boards with my roofer’s crowbar, pulling up
nails and prying up boards. I carefully collected all the nails in a cardboard
box but flung everything else off the roof. Of course, I picked
it all up and swept later but flinging is fun. It was clear
that there had at some point been a roof fire on WP668. The wood immediately
around the stove pipe was plywood (not tongue-and-groove) and the tongue-and-groove
around that was charred. I have splinters in both hands and legs.

Caboose Roof:

Tar Paper, Nails:

Nails Out:

John and I put the shop vacuum up on the roof so I could take off all of the
bits of wood, tar paper, leaves, rust, dead bees, scraps of wiring, sand, and
other mess. Vacuuming a 400 square foot surface covered in
wood stringers, nailers, and ridge boards held up by steel joists is a fussy,
filthy job. The joists had deep 90 year old pockets of rust flakes to be
chipped off and vacuumed up. Some areas had a light coating of gritty dry mud
where water had pooled. The 4″ vacuum hose clogged about every ten
minutes and had to be unplugged, dangled off the roof, and beaten against
the caboose wall to dislodge the latest blockage. The cleaning took hours but
the results look great (and a clean roof will be much more pleasant to work on).

After many unsuccessful attempts to loosen the bolts on the edge boards,
John finally cut them off with a grinder. Lots of noise and sparks: we both
wore earplugs. Except for the rotted edge boards and a few rotted ridge boards,
the wooden roof framework is in excellent condition. The steel joists are
also sound.

John on Ladder:

Clean Roof:

Under WP668:

Tomorrow, we insulate, replace the rotted ridge and edge boards and,
if there is time, start to put on the new roof covering. We will put in two
levels of insulation above the ceiling. The can lights we bought are
made to have insulation around them. A moving caboose is naturally cool and
does not need air cooling equipment but we need to plan for very hot summers.
The original Western Pacific colors for WP668 include a black roof, the worst
choice for a hot climate. However, with good insulation and an overhanging
silk tree (which will get planted as soon as it starts to rain), I have hope
of minimizing our need for air conditioning.

Over the 3 day weekend, John and the kids and I started to strip the
remaining original wood roof off WP668 and to put in the ceiling lighting. We
are working on the caboose in its storage area using a gas-powered
generator to drive the power tools. It is dirty heavy work but fun. We
came home filthy with splinters and bug bites and a sense of achievement.

WP668 is basically two wooden boxes in a steel frame. The ceiling boards
of the inner box are in very good shape, which is good because we want to
use them as is. The windows need replacement and the walls need patching and
repair. The floor is unsalvageable and needs replacement entirely. There
are now ten can lights inset down the center of the ceiling with two smaller
can lights inset over each bay window.

We were surprised to find that the original window rise into a space between
the inner and outer box – we had thought that the boxes’ surfaces touched in the walls.
Once the electrical ceiling work is done, we can insulate the space above, then put on
the new roof. Because there is space between the box walls, we may be able to
insulate the sides as well.

All of this work is being driven by the soon-to-start rainy season. It took
many months for the caboose to dry out after being soaked last year. We want at
least to get the roof in place before the rains start again.