Here’s a BEFORE look at my beloved old 1905 CNR caboose.
If everything goes as planned next week we will have the AFTER shot — because Stacey Bugsdrucker of Chick With A Brush fame is giving it a fresh coat of paint. I’m going with ketchup red for the main structure, mustard yellow for the trim, and a bit of black here and there for effect.
It’s going to look magnificent.
Just to get the age of this sweet old survivor in perspective, its birthdate of 1905 was just two years after the Wright Brothers first flew their plane, and seven years before the Titanic sank. Glad I missed that boat.
It’s amazing it’s still even with us. Due to my negligence it was beginning to look like the rot was getting past the point of no return, until one fine day I made an executive decision (I can do that because I’m the only one here), and took a really deep dive to see what condition its condition was in.
I was happy to learn the bulk of the decay was cosmetic, not structural, so with a lot, and I mean a lot, of TLC, my caboose, that Bugsdrucker has named Bertha, could be saved and will live on, hopefully for another 116 years or so.
When I first got this caboose at a farm auction in Gordon in the early 1990s (time just screams by), it still had the original numbers on it, so I was able to search its history and if I’m remembering correctly, Bertha spent most of her working life going back and forth between Winnipeg and Fort Frances, Ont. Not sure when she was decommissioned, but a decade or two was apparently spent in beautiful downtown Gordon, then she came home to Headingley.
It was bought for $850, after bidding against a harried man whose young son was determined dad was going to buy him this for a playhouse. I’m sure one of them got read the riot act when they got home, and it wasn’t the kid.
So, Laur’, you bought yourself a caboose. Good boy. Now how you gonna get it home?
No problem. I hired Brunger Brothers Building Movers of Teulon, and $1,000 later Bertha was sitting pretty in my yard. She has sheltered us through countless parties and gatherings, including welcoming in the New Year for at least 10 parties during its residence here. The caboose was warm as toast from the old woodburning cookstove, and it was often crammed with revellers — with 25 or more snowmobiles parked outside ready to scream down the river when the mood struck. Fun times indeed.
But I digress, back to the big save. Step one was to redo the roof because a wooden structure with a leaky roof is going to die. Fortunately it wasn’t leaking into the interior yet. So the roof was sheeted with plywood and covered with roll roofing and the waterproof integrity was restored.
Then a bit ago, I began the hunt for good used 3.5-inch tongue and groove siding, used because buying new would have been very painful, and I lucked into a free pile in a front yard on Morley Avenue, and a really good buy on new old stock from an estate sale.
I’m thrifty that way.
The goal for now is to get as much restorative work done as possible, then over time, pick an area to focus on for renewal, do the repair, repaint that section, and just keep going until in a year or 10 it’s all done.
Tune in next week, same time, same page, for the big reveal. It’ll be a party!
Comments and story ideas welcome!
lmustard1948@gmail.com
