I just purchased 2 Bev-Bel/Athearn 54’ C & O Covered Hopper cars, #s 603318 & 603395. The car bodies are painted beautifully. However. the car ends, underframe, and outlet covers are unpainted (just black plastic) is this normal or should all of the mentioned parts be painted?
They should be painted.The ends should be yellow and depending on the date the prototype car was painted, a blue underframe.Well if this is a Chessie car.I think someone must have lost the correct parts from the kit and substituted some undec parts.I had a CSX hopper from bev bel the same way.Dan
When Athearn first introduced their 4740 Covered Hopper they only painted the body and left the underframe etc in natural black plastic. The road names they picked did have this type of scheme with black ends and hoppers. As time went by many covered hoppers were painted or repainted in one color. When delivered the C&O hoppers may have had the black underframe etc. It would be best to find a picture of the car as delivered or later in service to see if the paint scheme is correct.
Among the experienced modelers they will build a car/locomotive from a picture on a certain date to be sure the paint scheme and details are correct.
In a similar vein I purchased two Bev-Bel open hoppers, to get my inventory correct I wanted to put the class numbers on the cars, to my surprise these hoppers which are close the H31 class were numbered as a GLa class car. Now I have to cars to renumber to the proper number series. Always check numbers and class of car before buying!
Rick