Over the next month; or, so I will be kit bashing an Athearn Blue Box cupola caboose, into a Northern Pacific 1050 to 1099 series steel caboose. This rendition will have a lower cupola than the one in the photograph, which is a 1000 to 1049. To begin the caboose in the photo, I purchased from the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association, a copy of their series of Mainstreeter Magazines dealing with the N.P.'s iconic cabooses. This information is vital to the project! I think these magazines have drawings of all the cabooses used by the N.P. However, if you were to build along with this build thread, you would not need to purchase this magazine; so, you don't need to join the NPRHA; or, buy any copies of the Mainstreeter. Yes, the Athearn blue box kits are no longer available. However, they can be found at train shows and swap meets and on Ebay today, I found 14 of them for sale at prices of from $4.00; or, less, on up to $15.99 "Buy It Now". I would recommend getting an un-built kit. Or, if you are good at disassembly, maybe a built one would work for you. Possibly, you already have an un-built caboose to use, as these things where plentiful when the Athearn Blue Box Kits where available.
This will not be an exact scale copy of these N.P. Steel Cabooses; but, I think if you wanted to, you certainly could go all out. My philosophy on model railroading is: In HO Scale some details are to small to be seen at normal viewing distances; so, I don't waste my time reproducing them. Beyond removing the molded on grabs and other surface details and replacing with wire grabs; or, my best effort to reproduce the detail, I don't go much deeper.
I have a few small projects to complete before I can actually begin this one. So, it may be a few days before I can actually start this project.