Our 91-year-old backyard caboose, WP668, has just been newly painted on the
outside. This is her first complete and professional painting in about
50 years. WP668 is a 1916 steel strapped wooden caboose so we have been
restoring both the metal and wood components.
Two coats of rust brown body paint have already been applied by
Avi Lenchner and his crew from Avi Decorative Painting, 650-329-0770,
Menlo Park, CA. There is some trim which still needs to be
painted brown, plus the yellow paint (mostly on ladders and handrails) needs
to be applied. The painters have also started stripping the 10 feet of
whitewashed ceiling on the inside of WP668. The inside ceiling will
eventually be the natural dark honey-colored wood and the walls will be white.
John has finished replacing the ceiling boards under the roof overhanging
the front and back landings and also the trim around the doors. The
floor boards on one of the landings are also replaced; John had to
extend and restore the steel under that landing. He is mostly
done replacing the wood and re-welding the steel of the second landing
and stairs. He is starting to work on the wood window trim today.
The welder who will rebuild the steel bay window is scheduled to do his
work in the next two weeks. The prior owner of WP668 had cut out that
window to install a door. Also, John has found a vendor who can
re-create the front and back ladders. The original ladders were rotted
out and mostly cut off before we purchased our caboose.
We are discussing external lighting. There were no lights originally on the landings – only removable round red/green marker lamps which slotted
into holders on the sides. The marker lamps plugged into electrical outlets
on either side of the top of the caboose doors. John and I own one
engine-style marker lamp which fits into the holder but it is much larger
than the lamps shown in historic photos of Western Pacific cabooses in
service. We are looking to purchase two historic caboose-style marker
lamps. These have been coming up for sale on
eBay from time to time. We will
probably also install two unhistoric-but-needed exterior lights on either
sides of both caboose doors. There will be new lighting on the
underside of the caboose body to light walkways.
The crew stripped the paint that had been slapped over the original
Western Pacific Feather River Route sign on the side of WP668. Happily, the
steel retains a strong shadow of the original sign. We plan to restore
the original logo. I hope to post photos soon…
KatysBlog 