Celebrating 29 Years of Preservation!
The Restoration of Caboose C-60
Caboose C-60 along with cabooses C-63 & C-64 were donated to the Chapter on May 4, 2003 by the Long Island Rail Road. C-60 was built for the Long Island in 1963 by Morrison International Corporation of Buffalo, New York.
Photo Joe Lupinacci
Chapter members went right to work painting over the graffiti. No one wanted the local community complaining about eye sores in the railroad yard.
The cabooses arrived in Riverhead with their yellow & blue MTA paint schemes covered up by urban camouflage, better known as graffiti!
C-60 as delivered to Twin Forks in 2003.
Work continued late into the night to get the painting completed. (Photo Joe Lupinacci)
This is how caboose C-60 looked the following day
And thus, Caboose Row was formed!
The cabooses looked like this for a while. It was decided the first caboose to get restored would be our N22A flat side, C-60. We set up a fund raising campaign to help fund the restoration. Everyone who donated to the project would get their name on one of two plaques depending on the amount of the donation. The donors were placed in either the “Silver Caboose Club” or the “Gold Caboose Club." The plaques were to be placed in the caboose for all to see to honor those who donated to help the restoration project.
From the fund raising campaign, we hired a company called NO-Chem Stripping. This company used non-toxic ways to strip surfaces clean of paint, rust and debris. In our case, the media used to strip the interior of C-60 was small plastic pellets. NO-Chem was hired to strip the graffiti covered inside of the caboose.
NO-Chem's equipment truck was parked outside
C-60 with air lines run to the inside of the caboose.
The big bags seen in between the cabooses are collecting the material being removed by the stripping crew.
This is how the interior looked after the work was done. No-Chem started work at 7 AM and finished around 6 PM.
With the interior stripped, it was imperative to prime the unfinished metal to keep rust from forming. That is when the Chapter members grabbed some brushes and rollers and applied two coats of primer to the entire interior of the car. We worked until 1 AM the following day without rest, stopping only to grab a bite to eat.
Here is the interior at 1 AM on a Sunday Morning. It was a long but satisfying day!
Chapter members decided to return the Caboose to its "as delivered" paint scheme of Orange, yellow & Black. Pictured above is Member Greg Kruszeski applying the first of two coats of primer. Then two coats of orange were applied.
When researching the color of the inside, along with the standard battleship gray, C-60 at one time was painted this shade of turquoise. We went with the turquoise! Above, members Rich Gorddard, Frank Mastandrea and Bob Bender apply the finishing touches to the inside. (Left Photo by Bob Bender)
The conductor’s bunk needed a major upgrade. Chapter member Heidi Lupinacci constructed a whole new and comfortable cushion.
We were suddenly in a deadline situation. The New York Transit Museum wanted to display our caboose as an exhibit at their museum. The idea was to have the caboose at the NYCM in the Court Street subway station in Brooklyn to coincide with the LIRR 175th Anniversary celebration. The heat was on to finish on time.
We needed to replace the windows which were covered in graffiti. The center photo shows members
​John Thomson & Paul Strubeck repairing and painting the window frame.
All the second story work was done by member John Thompson. Here John worked late into the evening to get the roof finished. (3 photos by Art Christian)
Officials from the LIRR, NYCT Subway, the NYTM and the FRA all inspected the caboose. There were measurements taken, height and width dimensions to examine to determine if C-60 would even fit through the subway tunnels to the NYTM. The FRA official gave us a list of things we needed to do to make the caboose ready for transport. The next several photographs show our members performing the needed FRA work.
All the journal boxes had to be inspected for leaks and wear on the brasses. All the boxes required fresh packing. The first picture shows member Anthony De Bellis cleaning out the bearing box. The second picture shows Anthony and Member Steve Sucic removing the old packing.
A wasted brass bearing like the one above had to be replaced. Luckily we had other cabooses that acted as donors for replacement brasses. The second photo shows member Rich Gorddard preforming the rather physical task of repacking the bottom of the journal housing with cotton packing.
Freshly packed bearing, now all that is needed is oil.