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Con-Cor HO scale GATX Airslide covered hopper
The Con-Cor kits for this car were somewhat easier to build than the Walthers one and very substantially easier than the old E&B Valley “flat kit” for the same kind of car. Con-Cor’s greatest achievement was in casting the four diagonal braces near the ends, which had to be individually trimmed at odd angles for the Walthers cars, integrally with the car body. I’ve described that elsewhere as the nicest job of casting since Benevenuto Cellini did his Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa during the Renaissance.
The new Con-Cor ready-to-run models’ strongest point is their interesting and authentic paint jobs, based on color photos from the real cars’ builder, General American. The new Athearn models of old-style (with the diagonal braces) single-bay Airslides, which Athearn has shipped and Horizon Hobby, its sole wholesaler, has in stock (except for the undecorated car, which is gone already), will have finer detail than the Con-Cor cars – and a substantially higher list price.