Katy, The Caboose Who Got Loose - a MOD of a MOC based on the children's book

[Murdoch17]

Heavily inspired by @zephyr1934's MOC of "Katy" from the classic children's book "The Caboose who got Loose". His version can be seen here in his topic.

As for the book itself, it is a children's picture book written and illustrated by ex-Disney employee Bill Peet. (You might know him from his work on film "The Sword in the Stone" which he storyboarded and designed the characters of.) Anyway, Wikipedia had this to say about it on it's entry for the (quite wonderful and well-done) book:

The Caboose Who Got Loose, published in 1971, tells the story of Katy Caboose, a caboose who is tired of being dragged around at the end of the train by the Engine. She dreams of being part of the beautiful sceneries she passes during her trips, but she cannot because she is always on the move. One day, when the engine is pulling the train up a steep mountain grade, the caboose is jolted loose from the train and flies back down the track towards a turn. Upon arriving at the turn, she has too much speed and she flies into the air off the track. Luckily she gets wedged between two trees, and she spends the rest of her days happy living in a beautiful place.

I didn't want to use stickers for Katy's eyes like what's being done by Zephyr1934, so I decided to use the eyes from set 43186 (Bruni the Salamander buildable character) from the Disney Frozen II line. I also added a actual mouth, as just the two eyes without something between them looked kind of odd, most likely because of the specific eyes I chose. The MOC I based this on used a different method for the mouth using a lot of SNOT-work.... I used a brick with 2 studs on the sides and two quarter tiles to give her a open mouth.

The "rear" of the caboose is the forward facing part closest to the engine, which is a part of Katy we never see in the book. Confused yet?

I took some liberties with his design, such as changing the ladders at each end to black from red, removing two wheelsets + the roof chimney, and redoing the roof itself to be much simpler. (This last one was done because I couldn't figure out the original MOC roof's curved design!) I did keep the basic SNOT-work design, but made it so both halves would be stud-inwards.  All of this makes the models less accurate to the book it's based off, but I don't really think anyone in the general public will notice. (The general LEGO community might know of some discrepancies and fellow train modelers not of the LEGO-type will not care even if I did make it accurate, as it's not a "real" train.)

Now, as a train head, this model and the book it's based on only bother me in two ways: There is no red light for the end of train, and where in the heck did the conductor go when Katy landed in the trees! It certainly makes a guy wonder what kind of Mickey Mouse-organization this railroad is running here!  

As usual, comments, questions, and complaints welcome!

Edited November 2, 2021 by Murdoch17

[XG BC]

nice job on simplifying such a complex moc. yours looks awesome too

[zephyr1934]

Nice take on Katy

 

14 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

There is no red light for the end of train, and where in the heck did the conductor go when Katy landed in the trees! It

In the day (during day time back in the days when the engines were steamers) the train would have had "flags" which would have been metal paddles rather than lanterns or lights. They are still missing none the less. As for the conductor... I'm still troubled by the thought that Katy eats people (grin).

[Feuer Zug]

The eyes and mouth give a anthropomorphic look to your bobber caboose. If I hadn't seen @zephyr1934 version and the book, I would have thought it perfect for the Cars universe.

[Murdoch17]

11 hours ago, XG BC said:

nice job on simplifying such a complex moc. yours looks awesome too

Thanks @XG BC, it wasn't easy how to puzzle out how to assemble it in real life from the digital model I made based of Zephyr's photos. Was easily the hardest thing I've had to assemble recently.... way too much SNOT!

2 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Nice take on Katy

 

In the day (during day time back in the days when the engines were steamers) the train would have had "flags" which would have been metal paddles rather than lanterns or lights. They are still missing none the less. As for the conductor... I'm still troubled by the thought that Katy eats people (grin).

Good point @zephyr1934 on the metal flags... completely forgot about them being a thing. Thanks again for making such an awesome MOC! 

1 hour ago, Feuer Zug said:

The eyes and mouth give a anthropomorphic look to your bobber caboose. If I hadn't seen @zephyr1934 version and the book, I would have thought it perfect for the Cars universe.

That's funny, @Feuer Zug, because Bill Peet also wrote the original 1952 short-story of what became Suzy the little blue coupe for Disney, which eventually became the stylistic inspiration for the Cars / Planes universe. I guess the idea has gone full circle now, right back to Bill Peet's 2-D creations.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Murdoch17

[JopieK]

Looks very nice @Murdoch17. Good find those eyes make it really look like the one from the book.

[Paperinik77pk]

Really nice version of Katy, it fits your style and would be the perfect last wagon in many of your old style trains! 

But...it could be nice to see her closing other trains (e.g. space ones), and live other adventures! 

[zephyr1934]

On 11/2/2021 at 2:10 PM, Murdoch17 said:

That's funny, @Feuer Zug, because Bill Peet also wrote the original 1952 short-story of what became Suzy the little blue coupe for Disney, which eventually became the stylistic inspiration for the Cars / Planes universe. I guess the idea has gone full circle now, right back to Bill Peet's 2-D creations.

Wow, just watched it from the youtube link, Cars borrowed very liberally from Suzy. I liked the Peet's Ice truck that passed in one scene.

On 11/2/2021 at 3:52 PM, Paperinik77pk said:

But...it could be nice to see her closing other trains (e.g. space ones), and live other adventures! 

Like on the end of the Conjunction Junction train (which is now a different Disney property)

[Paperinik77pk]

4 hours ago, zephyr1934 said:

Wow, just watched it from the youtube link, Cars borrowed very liberally from Suzy. I liked the Peet's Ice truck that passed in one scene.

Like on the end of the Conjunction Junction train (which is now a different Disney property)

Guys, you're making me discovery things I've never saw before - I thought that "Conjunction Junction" was a really nice name given by  @Murdoch17 to a little station - I never figured out it could be a cartoon!!! You made my day - now I'll have the "Conjuntion Junction, whaaaaat's your functiooooon?" refrain in my mind for all the night!!!