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.

llinois Central Gulf Transfer Cabooses. ICG inherited 16 steel transfer cabooses from Gulf Mobile & Ohio in the 1972 merger. For the next six years, cars due for repainting received orange paint and the dotted-rail logo. Placement of the lettering varied from car to car and two of these variations are presented in this run. At its peak, ICG was enormous with 9,500 route miles - 60 more than Union Pacific during the same period. Their multiple, parallel routes cut a swath from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico and Chicago west to the Iowa-Nebraska border. After years of selling off many of these parallel routes, ICG dropped the “Gulf” from their name in 1988 and abandoned orange for a medium gray.

33030 Illinois Central Gulf #199081 $49.95
33031 Illinois Central Gulf #199085 $49.95.

All Bluford Shops cabooses come ready-to-run with Kadee #5 couplers, metal wheels, wire grab irons and cut levers and appropriate trucks for the road name. Each road number is sold separately. We are still in the process of cutting the tooling on all five caboose variations.

Delivery of this group is expected in 2013. First draft artwork is shown here and is subject to improvement by our crack development team.