There are two types of Canadian 4550 cu.ft. cylindrical covered hoppers. Does anyone know how to tell the difference between the Intermountain (or Walthers) NSC one and the NARC Hawker-Siddeley one? Any advice would be appreciated.
4550 cubic foot cylindrical hoppers were built by THREE Canadian manufacturers: National Steel Car (NSC), Hawker-Siddeley Transportation (HST), and Marine Industries Ltd. (MIL).
The spotting differences are subtle: differences in side panel number and spacing (weld lines), differences in walkway supports, differences in bolster ends/jacking pads.
Intermountain and Walthers both do an NSC prototype.
PWRS/NARC does a Hawker-Siddeley prototype and is also coming out with a Marine Industries.
There were also other sizes like NSC 4100 (lightweight aluminum cars built only for Canadian Wheat Board-CNWX), NSC 4350 (CN only?), MIL 4650 (built for the US export market - PBLX, FLIX, CNW, SCOX, etc.) and NSC 4650 (with the little upper-body bump outs on the ends - ATSF, TRC. NAHX, CPI) and the earlier smaller 3800 cuft cylindricals built in the late 1960s represented by the Rapido Trains model.
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Note that Intermountain is really notorious for painting their NSC 4550 with paint schemes from EVERY variant of cylindrical car, including many that were only ever applied to different sized cars.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. Actually, I’m looking for decals to repaint an InterMountain product I bought 30 years ago because the pad printing is unclear. I didn’t want to get the prototype manufacturer wrong, but if the difference is as small as you say, no one would notice (lol)
At the time, I was fascinated by cylindrical hoppers, and after looking at RMC and RMJ magazines, I struggled to get hold of the Bachmann NSC 4650 and Model Power NSC 3800. However, I was disappointed by their unrealistic color schemes. The Bachmann had a fatal flaw in that it had no weights. The Model Power ones had poor proportions. Especially since Atlas released the ACF cylindricals around the same time, their poor quality was glaring.
But recently, I’ve been remembering the old days and feeling a fondness for them. I’ve started to wonder if there’s some way to revive them. Seeing the magnificent NSC 3800 released by Rapido has made me feel even more strongly about this. So I’m looking for decals to repaint them.
Both of these are horrid models. The Bachmann at least attempts to represent a specific car (the NSC 4650) but is outdated and crude.
The Model Power only vaguely represents a generic cylindrical car, like the only reference they had to work with was a tiny thumbnail photo or a verbal description.
Hmm, you say “horrid”!
Around 1990, these were very valuable. The NSC 3800 in particular was a rare Macau-made model. It was probably painstakingly produced there. A British man named Chris Leigh released (personally?) an etching kit for converting them, but I was not able to get hold of one.
By the way, what do you do with these models? Do you throw them in the trash? Do you sell them at a swap meet or on an online auction? But these models are helpless no matter where they go. So I think I would restore them to their planed state with my own hands. Well, we Japanese believe that everything has a soul. We cannot treat them carelessly. I have always cherished that.
This model came into my hands through some connection. I will try again someday.
I have acquired three damaged Canadian cylindrical hoppers.
They are made of brass without the original boxes, but compared to the BrassTrains website, they do not appear to be made by OMI/Ajin. They are not listed in “the Brass Model Trains, Price & Data Guide, Volume 2, 2009 Edition” either.
They have no stirrups on the four corners. The roofwalks are not see-through. The ladders on the ends of the cars are soldered onto pressed sheet metal. The rope hangers are larger than scale. The trucks appear to have been replaced with Kadee 70-ton ones. The reds of the car bodys seem to be darker than the prototypes. The decals are very nicely applied, but the COTS edges are too thick.
Does anyone know the importer or manufacturer?
[Additional note] It was longer than the InterMountain model. It said it was 4650cuft.