American Model Builders 887 NYC Lot 732 Long Wood Cupola Caboose – LASERkit — Laser-Cut Wood Kit – Unpainted, Includes Decals, HO Scale

This HO Scale NYC Lot 732 Long Wood Cupola Caboose from American Model Builders is based on cars rebuilt from boxcars circa 1944. While the United States was fighting wars in Europe and the Pacific, railroads on the home front were doing their part to meet the additional shipments. With restrictions placed on materials such as steel, railroads across the county turned to rebuilding older pieces of rolling stock to meet rising traffic demands. In 1944, the New York Central rebuilt fifty boxcars into cabooses at their East Buffalo, New York shop. Entering the shop as 1910 era 36-foot steel framed wood bodied boxcars, they exited as essentially new cabooses numbered 20100-20149. These cabooses were given construction lot number 732. In outward appearance, the lot 732 cabooses resembled the NYC 19000 series standard caboose with its short offset cupola, but were more than five feet longer. The cabooses retained the steel fish belly frame as the boxcars they were rebuilt from, but a steel channel was added that ran along the bottom of the body of the cabooses giving them a unique appearance. While NYC’s wood-bodied steel frame cabooses were bumped from mainline trains with the addition of 300 all steel bay window cabooses between 1949 and 1952, they continued to serve on local and branchline trains. The introduction of the steel transfer type caboose in 1966 sent many more of NYC’s wood cabooses into retirement. At the time of the Penn Central merger there were still ten lot 732 cabooses on the roster.

This NYC Lot 732 Long Wood Cupola Caboose kit features precision laser-cut parts with peel-and-stick backing on door and window pieces. Details are made of cast-resin and cast metal. The kit includes custom decals from Tichy Train Group. The undecorated kit does not include trucks (Tahoe Model Works Barber-Bettendorf Swing Motion Caboose Trucks are recommended) or couplers.