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Arizona State Railroad Museum acquires covered hopper
Forgive my RR ignorance, but why is a covered hopper car worthy of a museum? The story did not get into that detail, and curious minds need to know.
This is an Airslide covered hopper car, built in various designs from the mid-1950s through the early 1980s. The design is no longer common, but was once considered to be ideal for transporting flour, sugar, and other such powdered materials. It is the kind of car one won’t be seeing in revenue service very much longer.
General American has always been a good donor of freight equipment to museums, and, thanks to them, some museums have good examples of old tank and refrigerator cars, too. It would be nice if some other older cars would be/could be preserved in some way other than photographs.
Not enough facts. I appreciate it might be a rare hopper, but what’s the context here vis-a-vis Arizona or the GCRy/AT&SF Grand Canyon Branch? There’s nothing about the car or its acquisition on the museum’s website, even though the URL-link suggested as much.