Paint Schemes for MEC Cabooses

Greetings,

I am seeking some information that I don’t have access to here in Portland, Oregon. I know the wrong Portland for this board but any way that is where I currently live. So all that said this is what I am seeking. During the 1938 to 1941 era what was the paint scheme of the Maine Central Cabooses? Did the cabooses have a distinct style or were they pretty much a standard northeast style caboose? And does this time period correspond to the red and yellow steam lettering scheme? What is the proper name of that scheme? The reason for all of this is that I am a narrow gauge modeler who happens to like “Maine Standard Gauge” especially where it interchange with the broad gauge like at Wiscasset and Farmington and I would like to try and model Wiscasset with its water front and interchange.

Thanks in Advance
Andre Anderson

I'll be honest I can't even find evidence that the MEC had cabooses that far back. I know it sounds weird but it seems true. Strange.

Here's a photo of the WW&F/MEC Diamond in Wiscasset. Maybe someday they'll bring that back. Wouldn't that be a New England Railroading miracle.

http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychao ... sing01.jpg

WW&F #3 at the Wiscasset station:

http://lincoln.midcoast.com/~wwfry/hist ... tation.jpg

Of course the MEC had cabooses in 1939, why wouldn't they?

Maine Central had a class of wooden cabooses numbered in the 500-600 series that were built by Laconia Car Company in 1911, a small number of them lasted right up to the mid-1970's. They were originally painted boxcar red with RR Roman lettering, then, just like neighbor B&M, were painted maroon with red ends with the familiar MEC circle around the pine tree logo. In the 1960's they were re-sheathed with plywood(a couple of them were re-sheathed with steel) and retained their truss rods right up to the end in the now familiar Harvest Yellow and Pine Green color scheme with both the square "Pine Tree Route" emblem or the pine tree in the circle emblem of the 1970's.

The following photos exsit in the book :- Cabins, Crummies & Hacks by John Henderson

559 plywood - 582 plywood - 587 plywood - 603 steel - 606 plywood - 610 steel - 616 steel - 635 plywood