I recently obtained some used HO grain hoppers. I believe they are all Athearn models. I would like to know if there are representative of real or imagenary cars. I know Pillsbury is a real company but I could not find out anything about the other three company (the towns are real) on the internet searches I made.
The four cars in question are: Pillsbury (no number); Terminal Grain (#TRGX 1085), Sioux City, IA; Rich Grain Service (#PTLX 1566), Chester, IA; and Percival Grain (#RRRX 2106), Percival, IA.
Terminal Grain is listed in the Railway Equipment Register for July 1980. They had 100 4750 cu. ft. covered hoppers. They are/were located in Sioux City, Iowa. Railroad Picture Archives shows a picture of a covered hopper lettered for Percival Grain but it’s a different number series. A Google for Rich Grain Service shows that its has existed at some time.
SO, they are certainly not imaginary; but they may not be totally accurate. If the cars are Athearn, they are 4740 cu. ft. cars. The Terminal Grain cars are/were all 4750’s. Close, but no banana.
I’d bet that a large majority of rolling stock manufactured by the hobby industry are based on bogus prototypes. Take for instance a “standard” ARA 40’ box car. They came in many variations primarily because of varying roof, end, door, roof walk, and brake wheel styles. The typical mass-producer will make one style of molds and puts on various road names (and we’re still hoping the prototype had the general type of car and that the car numbers are in the correct series) even though details aren’t correct for all lettered railroads. Some manufacturers are better and provide for differing car doors and ends. There are even a few which provide only correct models, but these are craftsman kits.
I understand why mass producers do what they do. Modelers demand cars lettered in various road names and manufacturers want to provide an affordable product. My gripe is manufacturers don’t disclose information on how their products differ from the prototype regarding signifcant details. Manufacturers say they don’t provide disclosure because it will reduce sales.
Scroll down and there are pictures of both the Percival Grain and Rich Grain Service cars. So the models do have real cars that they are based on. Whether the models available are exact matches, I couldn’t say.
It’s fairly rare for a manufacturer to put out cars with made-up company or railroad names on them, unless they’re done as a limited run for say a model railroad club using their own railroad’s name or the name of a fictional shipper on their railroad.
However, it’s not unusual for a manufacturer to find a pic of a car being used by a real RR or company and decide that they have a model car that is ‘close enough’ to the real thing to decorate that car for that RR or company, even though their model isn’t exactly like the real thing.
For example, the MDC / Roundhouse outside-braced wood caboose isn’t exactly like the Rock Island’s outside-braced wood caboose, but it’s pretty close, so a car painted and lettered for the Rock looks pretty good:
I have worked with agriculture for nearly 30 years, both in the west and in the midwest. As I am aware of grain cars and the grain elevators that they serve, I have seen many of these cars in the prototype. Many of them are owned and/or leased by larger grain brokerage companies (ConAgra, for instance) and have their names on them. There are also many railroad-owned cars as well as leased cars with either no company name or a railroad herald and name on them with the leasing company’s reporting marks. The leased cars are more common in modern-era railroading (1990+). Some of these grain cars are for specialized use, usually food grade grains (barley or wheat, for example). Usually special cleaning procedures are required for these cars and they often are printed on the sides of the cars. These are some details that could create more switching opportunities (a car cleaning track at a flour plant, for example) and with alittle research on various industries that are served by these cars (in addition to grain elevators), you could create yet another customer for your railroad.
