These are the first six road names on our brand new Transfer Cabooses in HO scale. Unlike our last announcement which featured the “short, bay window caboose” this group consists of genuine “Transfer” cabooses. Transfer cabooses were used for cross-town hops between yards. In the post-caboose era they have been used as “shoving platforms” providing a place for the brakeman or conductor to ride and be the engineer’s eyes during long backup moves. They did not have cupolas or bay windows, cots or amenities. In fact many didn’t have electricity. Most were built in the railroad’s own shops. Details will include wire grab irons and cut levers, Kadee #5 couplers, stairway light fixture castings, prototypical variation in marker light placement and free rolling trucks of various designs. Artwork shown here is preliminary and subject to improvement by our crack development staff.

Indiana Harbor Belt Transfer Cabooses. IHB is one of Chicago’s major terminal carriers, shifting blocks of cars from connections on one side of the city to the other. For most of its history, it was controlled by New York Central with a 60% stake (C&NW and MILW split the rest.) Today ownership is split between Canadian Pacific, Norfolk Southern and CSX. While parent NYC (later PC) was building transfer cabooses for themselves in the late 60s and early 70s, they built 20 for the IHB. They were built with Century green paint. This black and orange scheme was adopted in 1983. This run will be available with two different road numbers sold separately.