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Caboose 101 has been converted from the pre-July 2008 WW&F Discussion Forum.
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Mike Fox wrote:Dana brought up the topic before. The Maine Narrow Guage installed a cupola onto what was caboose 101. I went there today for research and had a camera with me. I will tell you that my pictures do not do enough to show this car. It has to be seen in person. Using the original blueprints, they totally rebuilt it from the ground up. And it looks perfect. It still has the Edavill Diamondplate platform and steps but they are in great shape and the general public would not know they are not original.
Mike
Bill Sample replied:For those not familiar with this car, I believe this had been rebuilt into a shorty combine at Edaville and saw little use during the final years. It spent a lot of time in the pine grove near the barbeque area, slowly rotting away. By the time it was brought to Portland, it seemed to be approaching the condition of the WW&F 309 when it was rescued from Connecticut.
The MNGRR craftsmen did a wonderful job with the caboose at the old Portland Co. works, birthplace of a number of two foot gauge cars and locomotives including a certain loco that we hold near and dear to our hearts!
Mike Fox replied:Bill,
You are correct. There was a sign on the rear platform that showed the condition of this car in 2002 before the work was started. It had a bunch of windows in it. Edaville had converted it into a combine type car. It was used sparingly in it's last years at Edaville duing the christmas shows. I should have taken a picture of the picture but I did not.
Mike
petecosmob replied:Well,...you can kinda see it in the top photo if you know what you're looking for...
You gotta kinda squint a bit, 
but I can definitely see the combine pic with the extra added windows.
I may even have an old photo of it kicking around in some shoebox uh-ruther here somewhere. I'll try looking for it if I can.
Cosmo
MikeW replied:Do they plan to operate this car or will it be on static display only? Anyone have some before shots so we can see what they started with?
Mike Fox replied:I dug through my photos and have nothing here. If you look at the rear platform you can see a photo of the car before they started in 2002. I'll try to play with my photo to enlarge that. It had 4x4 lateral braces on the outside of the car to keep the walls from fallin over. It was in sad shape. As far as operating it, I was told they wanted to keep it inside on display. This may change with time but for now it is inside displayed.
Mike
Mike Fox replied:That was easy. Look at this enlarged photo of the rear platform. You can get a better look at the before shot. Hindsight I probably should have taken a picture of the card.
Mike
