I am in a process of the finishing small L shaped layout, with the PRR/B&O interchange theme, small Pennsy branchline station and small yard with few industries and sidings. Era is late 50’s, so early diesels are main motive power for both PRR and B&O.
I am collecting freight cars with this in mind, so about half is PRR, then B&O. Other eastern roads are also represented, with some mid and west cars for good measure.
Recently I got few cars that are a bit puzzling, maybe somebody can help with some answers!
First car is 2-bay LV hopper for which the seller told me it’s Accurail, but I am not sure. I do not have original box. Accurail website does not have this type of hopper, not with 8 panels? So who made this car? [?]
Second question is about this ERIE hopper below. It is from Life-Like, ant it had truck mounted couplers. I removed those and mounted Kadee box and #5 couplers. Odd thing about it is that, having the body of the regular 2-bay open hopper, it has mounted roof with 8 hatches, as if the railroad converted the open hopper to the closed type. Did the railroads make those conversions, or is this LL model totally wrong?
Thommo, your first car looks like one of the old Train Miniature cars. Walthers ended up with this line, although I don’t think that they’re offering much, if any, of it any longer. Yours has metal wheels, but otherwise looks original. They also made an offset-side version, and it was also a little bit longer than versions offered by other manufacturers.
The LifeLike car is a remake of the original Varney version, which came as an open hopper and, with the inclusion of the roof casting, a covered version. I got one of each back in the '50s, when I first started in HO, and both are still in service, as open cars, on my current layout. My Varney cars came with separate ladders and body-mounted couplers, as the truck-mounted ones are a LifeLike “innovation”. [;)]
The LV twin hopper looks to be a Train-Miniature PS-3 open hopper with aftermarket T-section Bettendorf trucks (likely Central Valley, but they may also be older Walthers trucks from the mid-1980s). The LV didn’t have any PS-3’s, but the car is an OK stand-in for a USRA twin hopper (if you don’t look TOO hard!). These models are now made by Walthers.
The Erie open hopper is “basically” a USRA twin hopper with a railroad-added roof and hatches, to turn the car into a covered hopper. Several railroads did this to their USRA twins (IC, NKP, Rock Island, GN, etc), but to my knowledge the Erie did not. The Life Like model overall is pretty crude, but is the only model available of this sort of 1930s-1950s car conversion.
Although a railroad could have purchased a conversion kit to convert an open hopper to a covered one; they were also factory built that way as well. MEC purchased a number of covered hoppers back in the '20s (maybe earlier). They had the square hatches. Round hatches came in with the 50s Airslide hoppers so as to hold the air pressure during unloading. Bowser makes similar covered hoppers in 2 body styles http://www.bowser-trains.com/hocars/2baychop/2baychop.htm http://www.bowser-trains.com/hocars/2baychop/2baychop_closed.htm
As a side note, in a discussion of the mix of road names appearing in railroads in the northeast, the comment was that PRR and NYC where so huge that a freight car fleet should have 10% each of PRR and NYC. There was no mention of how much NYC should appear on PRR or visa versa.
Maybe I should have been a bit clearer. Let’s try this:
“The Life Like model represents a USRA twin hopper (or a 1920s built clone) that has been railroad-modified from an HM open hopper into a LO covered hopper.”
And I highly doubt that the Maine Central bought any covered hoppers in the 1920s. I’m getting a 1926 ORER in the main in a couple of days, and will check out their roster. According tot he 1930 ORER (which I do have on me now) the MEC had ZERO covered hoppers. In fact, at the time LO’s were VERY rare, accounting for only 2,266 cars in the USA and Canada (out of a grand total of 2,829,013 cars). Only five railroads and one private line owned ANY covered hoppers in 1930 (in order of fleet size, L&HR, CNJ, AOCX, TC&GB, SAL, ACL).
True, but these models represent cars built in the late 1930s through early 1950s. The USRA conversions were generally done just before or just after WWII, and look completely different. That’s why the overall mediocre Life Like model is actually a useful car to have: it’s just about the only way to quickly & easily model a fairly common transitional type car.
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As a side note, in a discussion of the mix of road names appearing in railroads in the northeast, the commen
I remember seeing a B&O covered hopper from an USRA twin that was very similar to the Life Like car, it was carrying fluxing stone to the steel mill in Coatesville. The Reading also had some similar cars in cement service (and converted dozens of quad hoppers into 2 bay covered hoppers for cement service)…
Ray, you’re certainly right about covered hoppers not being very common in the ‘20s and early ‘30s, but not all roads classified them as covered hoppers in those days, either. The CPR, for instance, built 200 36’ Dominion (Fowler Patent) boxcars in 1912-13 which were equipped with drop doors in the floor at the centre of the car, then added another 3500 steel 40’-ers in the 1920s. While not true covered hoppers (no roof hatches and no actual hoppers), they were essentially the same type of car. When they built their first true covered hoppers in 1919, they were rostered with the boxcars and labelled “Battleship Grain Cars”.
I really like those early covered hoppers, especially PRR H30 class and those nice wagontop designs that B&O used before going to PS cov. hoppers.
While we are at it, what can you say about this E&B Valley Airslide Covered Hopper Kit? I have it, it is still unfinished, because BLT date is 8-63, a little to new for my era. It is N-47A type airslide hopper. I like the kit and will try to build it, but did those cars appear in late 50’s? In other words, would the change of BLT date to, say, 6-58, be correct?
Second question is about Stewart 11009 3-bay open hopper in B&O livery. It is W-10 type hopper, and has BLT 2-64 date. Same question applies, were those cars manufactured in late 50’s, or is it newer design? Thanks!
That Erie covered hopper brought a long-forgotten memory out of the cobweb-infested reaches of my subconscious.
1953, give or take a year. A buddy and I cut school (legally - it was a ‘holiday’) and crossed over from Staten Island to the wilds of New Jersey. There was an Erie covered hopper of the exact design then available from Varney sitting at a concrete batch plant. The only difference was the paint scheme - concrete grey with black herald and reporting marks (probably to hide the concrete dust ‘weathering.’) The railroad was the New York and Long Branch, which was still running passengers behind PRR K-4s at that time.
I believe that the Airslide design dates to the early '50s, but, of course, some modelled versions may be of more modern prototypes. I’d say that your car is suitable for use on a '50s layout.
The style of open hopper shown dates back to the '30s, but there were similar ones in service at least as early as 1926. There was a similar design from the ARA in 1930, and one pretty-much the same as your model, from the AAR, in 1934.
Just change the BLT dates to better suit your era. [;)]
Wayne, I have checked the paper manual of the E-B kit, there is photo of the GACX Airslide with the BLT 11-54 date, so you are right. For me, that’s enough! [;)]
B&O had N-47 cars built ca. 1957 which were more or less identical. The lettering may have been different, the main visual difference would have been that the N-47’s rode on bettendorf trucks, whereas the N-47a rode on roller-bearing trucks.
MEC purchased 10 covered hoppers for cement service in 1917 from Standard Steel Car Co, road numbers MEC 2400-2409. They were rebuilt in 1934 and remained in service until the late 60s. Additional cement hoppers were bought in the early to mid 40s, road numbers MEC 2410-2444; others were purchased in the mid 50s. This information is from “Northern New England Color Guide to Freight and passenger Equipment” with accompanying photos.
Hopper cars not only went from mines to ports but,to steel mills,coke plants,coal dealers,and was used in stone service.
I have seen Santa Fe open hoppers loaded with Western gravel on the PRR in Columbus(Oh) back in the 50s…
PRR/N&W,C&O/Clinchfield interchanged complete coal trains.B&O and NYC handle complete coal trains off the Southern and L&N bound for the lakes and steel mills.
The “art of fleet mixing” must apply to modelers because the railroads never had such art since they hauled interchanged freight based on customers needs.
I once read in a MR or RMC an article that suggested that 80% of one’s rolling stock should be home road; and have used that as a guideline ever since. I no longer remember how the author arrived at that figure, or if he gave support for it in the text.
80% is way to high I would say more like 50-60% based on my observation railfaning and working as a brakeman.
80% would be a lot of idle cars since customers get their shipments from national suppliers on other roads…Straight line haul on a single railroad is unusual even for unit trains.
