B&O C-3035 Caboose Project

Greetings All,

While searching ebay for a B&O caboose for my youngest son to give to him for Christmas and add to his fleet of B&O equipment I came across this nice looking Athearn / Bev-Bel B&O Caboose #C-3035. 

Who is Bev-Bel? From Bev-Bel.com:
Bev-Bel Corp., formerly of Cresskill, New Jersey, was founded in 1956 by Irvin & Beverly Belkin. Bev-Bel produced limited runs of road names and schemes not generally produced by the major model railroad manufacturers, along with special-appeal rolling stock such as Holiday, Americana and Mexicana Models® series. Each production run featured its own distinct cab and car numbers.

Here's the caboose shell as it came out of the box. This is a good looking caboose! 

Checking the B&O caboose against a photo from the RR Fallen Flags website. The photo is from 1978 and the factory painted caboose is a close match. The addition of ACI labels and wheel dots will make the car look even more like the prototype.

The underside of C-3035 is back from the Patti O Paint Shop after having it's frame, ladders and rails painted with rattle can gray primer. This part of the 1:1 caboose was probably silver but the gray is is easier to work with and looks like a dulled silver. 

The car shop has reassembled the C-3035 and added some P-2000 metal wheelsets. Kadee #5s were included with the car and were reinstalled. 

ACI labels and wheel dots from Microscale were added as per the photo. After a couple of coats of Testor's Dullcote to seal the decals, clear plastic windows were added and the rails and ladder ends were brush painted yellow. 

The C-3035 is sandwiched by an Athearn BB C-3708 and 

an Athearn BB (possibly Bev Bel) 903010. I think the B&O / Chessie System at some point renumbered their cabooses by adding the 90 numbers in front of their former road numbers.

A last look before it gets put back in the box and wrapped for Christmas. 

Thanks for reading!