Category Archives: Caboose Project and Other Trains

John and I have been checking several times a day on our “new” 1916 caboose,
WP668, where it is in temporary storage
and all seems well so far. We are discussing where to start restoration and
repair work but we can’t do much until it dries out from the heavy rains.

The homeless (unhoused?) folks who are camped nearby do not seem
to be bothering it. This is a matter of concern because:
1) we don’t want them to move in, 2) we don’t want it burned by
a camp fire accident (or on purpose). Having
to evict trespassers is much harder than keeping them out in the
first place, which is why the windows are boarded up and the doors
are chained. There is strong lighting on half of it at night but the
other sides are in shadow.

Selected Caboose Move Photos from Tuesday, 28 February 2006:

Julie (crane operator):

Mark (low boy truck driver) after the caboose body was loaded:

Mark in his truck:

The caboose wheels, trucks, etc. after loading on the 2nd truck:

Leaving Hunter’s Point:

Caboose in San Francisco traffic:

Heading south on highway 101:

Under the lowest bridge (14 feet, 10 inches):

Passing Sun’s Menlo Park Campus exit:

Arriving in San Jose:

Off of 101, under the wires and street light:

Unloading the caboose body 1:

Unloading the caboose body 2:

Moving in the ties underneath:

Silicon Valley Lines club members move in the last tie:

Lifting the rails:

Dennis unloads the wheels 1:

Dennis unloads the wheels 2:

Everything on the ground:

A Job Well Done:

Images by Katy Dickinson (Copyright 2006)

We moved our 1916 WP668 caboose today from the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum
at Hunter’s Point in San Francisco to San Jose. The day started
at 7 a.m. with cutting off the battery box and a pulley for
the generator that extended too far down. Then, South Bay Crane &
Rigging lifted the caboose by crane from its trucks onto a low boy.
The trucks and a set of rail track were lifted onto a second flatbed.
Julie was our crane operator – she and the other crew (Dennis, Mark,
John, and the others) seemed to be having a great time.

At about 11 a.m., the low boy truck started driving south, followed
by the crane, a smaller truck, and the flatbed truck carrying the
remaining parts. I followed the low boy and got lots of photos of
WP668 passing under bridges as low as 14 feet, 10 inches. It was
exciting and fun to be following our own caboose down highway 101.

Once we arrived at the lot where it will be stored for several months,
the process was reversed. Here is a picture of WP668 just after it
was lifted from the low boy and before it came to rest:

Once everything was unloaded, John and some
Silicon Valley Lines
model train club members boarded up
the windows and put a tarp over the top and called it a day. We are
still sorting all of the pictures and will post more soon.

Image by John Plocher (Copyright 2006)

Our caboose moves tomorrow starting at 7 a.m. John was up at Hunter’s Point
getting everything ready on Saturday. The Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California finally moved their train of
historic rolling stock out of the Golden Gate
Railroad Museum the same day. They had asked for some bits off of our
caboose that we didn’t care about (they can use replacement battery boxes and brake
parts for 1916 rail equipment) but in the end, they did not have time to take
everything. Here is one of the cabeese we didn’t buy being lifted onto a flatbed
railcar to go to its new home in Portola:

Luckily, the crane and rigging company we hired has the equipment to cut
off the bottom bits that would make our caboose stand too tall to get under
highway bridges. John has been learning to use an oxyacetylene torch but train steel
is too heavy for the welding unit we borrowed. John put plywood over the openings
to keep bits from rattling out when the caboose is lifted. The rain and wind
are supposed to be way down by tomorrow. We think all will be ready in the
morning for WP688 to move from San Francisco to San Jose.



Images by John Plocher (Copyright 2006)

Yesterday and today, we have had a work crew in the back yard
filling in the swimming pool to make a base for our new
WP 688 Caboose.
In the last few weeks, we have removed the old pool deck and liner
and many of the surrounding sand-laid old brick walkways. The soils
engineer has been out several times to see what’s what and make
suggestions.

Yesterday, the work crew put down the first 40 tons of base rock.
They spread and then tamped it down with a machine called a Whacker.
Just now, a dump truck delivered 20 more tons of base rock to the front
street. It is fascinating watching a huge truck bed lift from
horizontal to 45 degrees (when the load starts to pour down) and
eventually up to at least 70 degrees to get everything out. They
had originally ordered drain rock (which has less grit and dirt) but
base rock was delivered. Base rock is a higher grade and will work
better so we didn’t complain. The little
Bobcat earthmover went right in and scooped up a load before dumptruck
was even empty. The Bobcat then spun in a tight circle and dashed off to
dump its first load. What fun!

The workers on this project are a very American mix. The crew moving
the rock and dirt are Latino, the Soils Engineer is African American, and the
dump truck driver is from Asia. It reminds me of Agatha Christie’s 1934
mystery Murder on the Orient Express. At the end, Belgian detective
Hercule Poirot says:

…I tried to imagine whether such an assembly was ever likely to be collected
under any other conditions. And the answer I made to myself was — only
in America. In America there might be a household composed of just such
varied nationalities — an Italian chauffer, an English governess, a Swedish
nurse, a German lady’s-made, and so on….

Tonight we will report our progress at the monthly operations night of
our club, the
Silicon Valley Lines. “Silicon Valley Lines (SVL) is an HO Scale
Model Railroad Club the heart of Silicon Valley, in San Jose, California.”
They are all very interested in our project to move a real (or “prototype” as model railroaders say) caboose into our back yard. John was elected Club
President starting next month so we will get to report our caboose
installation and restoration progress every week.

The crane and trucking company just called to ask if they could put off
tomorrow’s caboose move by a week. They need the equipment to support an
emergency call. The Golden Gate Railway Museum was OK with adding another
week to the schedule. Getting GGRM’s historic rolling stock off the San
Francisco Hunter’s Point property and into their new homes in other museums
and train companies is taking longer than anticipated.

My son Paul and his friend Zach are out in the backyard moving bricks. This
is one of their Spring Break weeks and John offered them $20- for a pizza
lunch (anything they want to eat and they can keep the change) if they moved
the old bricks edging the former swimming pool and stacked them out of the way.
For young teenage boys, this is a good deal. John took the pool liner to the
dump this morning and we hope to have work start on filling in the pool soon.
We thought they would be here yesterday but so far no one has arrived.

Now that it is out and stacked with the nails removed, the redwood decking from the
pool has many more splits than we thought. We still may be able to remill some
of it for the caboose roof but I think much of it will end up keeping the cats
warm from the fireplace next winter.

Today we will finish taking out the swimming pool deck (removing the nails
and stacking the redwood boards for reuse), and remove the pool’s plastic
liner. The soils engineer and the pool filling contractor have
been by and we are in discussions as to what it will take to
fill an 8 foot deep hole such that a 24 ton
caboose with
rails and ties can rest on top.

Last year, we had to take out out a large, useful, and elegant brick patio
because it sank eight inches due to poor soil compaction. The patio
had been put in by the prior owner around 1990 after the

Loma Prieta earthquake seriously damaged our house. It was built
on top of fill over the ramp where the basement was dug out. Over
time, the concrete pad under the bricks cracked and the pieces subsided.
One of the larger pieces tipped toward the house and started pouring
rainwater down the outside of the basement wall causing it to sweat
inside and making puddles on the floor. After we removed the patio,
we found a three foot deep hole underneath. So, we have good reason
to want the caboose to be on very solid fill.

It rained very heavily last night and there is snow halfway down Mount
Hamilton so today’s work will be cold and drippy. We hope to start
the contractor working on filling the pool next week.

John and our neighbor DeWayne spent the day at the
Golden Gate Railroad Museum
in San Francisco readying
Western Pacific 688 to move into storage in San Jose in a week.
They took the rotted out back steps off.

We have also drained our swimming pool and have about half of its
redwood deck dismantled and stacked for reuse as lumber. All of our
neighbors have been notified about this project and so far everyone
is supportive. I have a row of unhealthy citrus and privets and a
fence to remove so that the construction equipment can get in the
yard to start filling in the swimming pool.

Everyone asks when the party will be. We plan to have a caboose
blessing and potluck sometime this summer.