I have what is probably the same car that my mom brought home from a flea market for me back in the Seventies. My impression was that dated from the Sixties, but may be wrong. Forget who made it, but here is a version made recently
Mr Burket asks if it is prototypically accurate and specifically, what sort of commodity could be carried without leakage through the conventional hopper gates
Answers
Sorta - it seems to be based a combination of the following Erie car
Thing is, neither had conventional gates - but sliding sealable gates. It looks like conventional gates would leak too much. So the answer to question 2 is - sadly - "nothing’. Essentially, what we have is is a conventional hopper with a roof (which is what the PRR did with the GLe, but they installed sealable grates)
Yes this was not one of Ask MR’s finer moments in helping a reader with a question. I said some things in another thread (about looking for the April Fools Day joke in MR - only to learn there was no Joke this year). Since then I saw another possible prototype so even if you read this before, read to the end
Dave Nelson:
"That leaves two possibilities, in my opinion, one of which is that there IS no joke and we’ve been straining our eyesight trying to find it. The joke that isn’t there, like Sherlock Holmes’s the dog that didn’t bark, can be pretty effective.
The other possibility, and oh my this might offend Steve Otte if it isn’t a joke, is the Ask MR question from Dave Burket of Talmadge OH. He has an Erie covered hopper No. 4065 with 8 square hatchcovers and sawtooth-angled hopper gates. The key phrase there is “sawtooth-angled” gates - meaning, like a regular coal hopper has, not like a covered hopper has. The other key is Erie 4065.
In other words, he has the (in)famous Varney/Life-
A bit earlier than that, as I had one of those (and one without the lid) with my first HO trains, in 1955. The cars were originally made by Varney, and I still have both of mine. albeit as open hoppers.
I have made a few small upgrades, with some wire grabs and sill steps, and separate ladders, but they still have the original cannonball-size rivets…
I think the trucks are from Train Miniature. While it’s a far cry from what’s available nowadays, they’re a nice reminder of an earlier and simpler time, and their discrepancies aren’t all that noticeable when seen in a train.
I don’t know about the particular ERIE cars, but some of the earliest forms of covered hoppers built in the 1930s were like standard hoppers (with standard hopper gates) with roofs.
