N&W caboose paint schemes

[NW Modeling List]

"Jimmy,
Do you care to expand on that thought? Were they:
too small?
poorly built?
had a history of incidents?
other reason?
or all of the above?

I'm not sure that I've every seen that class caboose and am just curious what is was that made them disliked.

Don Trettel"

Don & Ed,
    First of all you need to know the we on the eastern region were riding C31/P, C32p with a very very few steam era cabs thrown in in from time to time, though mostly on locals and shifters. These were all very good cabs with cushion underframes. 
    Once the C31 cabs were rebuilt to C31P specs, read replacement of coil spring to leaf springs, these were the "Cadillac" of cabs. The C32P's didn't compare, Period!
    Near the end of the "caboose era" the powers that be started shipping in all of the goof ball cabs from the western regions. These cabs did not have a cushion underframe, so, we nicknamed them "Hardheaders". Nobody liked them.
    The cab in question was worse than that. I rode one one time out of Roanoke and made it as far as Solitude and that was enough. I stopped the train and had them back up and pick me up on the head end before I got killed. 
    Not only did it ride rough, the seats in the cupola were very short. You could hardly even sit on them. Not only that the seat across from you was so far away, even with my 6"2" frame, I couldn't even reach the edge of the seat to brace myself against the slack.
    I don't know why the unions let the N&W get away with using these hunks of junk. Didn't do much to enhance the love between the company and its employees.

Jimmy Lisle

PS Please don't bring these nightmares up again.
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