HO coal ore car

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I am looking for an HO coal mine ore car. The car that would have been pulled by horses or mules to bring the raw coal to the surface from underground. I will need 3 or 4 of these. I saw only one item in Walthers catalog that was even close, a dump car. But they are out of stock. Any other ideas? Thanks.

2

This would be on narrow gauge track, right ?
If you went with HOn30",which is N gauge track in HO, you might be able to modify a few British N scale 4-wheel ‘coal wagons’ for your needs.Don’t know much about the scale, perhaps mfr. would be Graham Farish ?
rgds/Mike R

3

Yes, Mike, it would be narow gauge. I had not thought of looking in the N gauge stuff. That’s a good idea. Thanks. Also, I never heard of that mfr. Is it easy to get stuff from him? Thanks again. GY

4

George, I don’t know much about N scale, except I know Graham Farish is a British manufacturer of both N and OO/HO equipment, and I have seen some of their stuff at train shows up here in Canada. There are other British sources too.Just checked Walthers and they don’t list GF.
Where are you located?..perhaps a posting on “British N Scale??” on this forum and on www.the-gauge.com would get a retail source near you.I would post it on The Gauge forum if you like.
regards/Mike

5

Hi George, I made some neat mine cars once out of N scale gondola cars. I won’t go into all of the details here but in essence I shortened the gondola to the length of an N scale archbar truck. Then I just ACC’d the truck under the shortened car. Makes a single truck 2 axel mine car. I used code 40 rail for the mine tracks and it really looked good against the HO mine. Of course the cars weren’t the dumping kind and had to be unloaded by the “armstrong method” but once they were heavily weathered I was well pleased with them…Take Care…Vic

6

Cool idea, Thanks Vic.

7

Here are a few other things to try:
Roco makes a “mine dump car” that you can find on Walters, due April. Tichy makes a wood ore car, I’m not sure which one you found. Also, BC models makes a few that might work:
http://home.sprynet.com/~bcmodels/hopperca.htm
and see if any look good to you. They also make an HOn3 version of the 8-wheel hopper, and an HON3 21’ ore car:
http://home.sprynet.com/~bcmodels/narrowga.htm
I’d be interested in what you find appropriate, drop me a line. I’m mulling over the idea myself, as you might have inferred. No room on the current, unfinished layout, but in the future…
Dean

8

Here are a few other things to try:
Roco makes a “mine dump car” that you can find on Walters, due April. Tichy makes a wood ore car, I’m not sure which one you found. Also, BC models makes a few that might work:
http://home.sprynet.com/~bcmodels/hopperca.htm
and see if any look good to you. They also make an HOn3 version of the 8-wheel hopper, and an HON3 21’ ore car:
http://home.sprynet.com/~bcmodels/narrowga.htm
I’d be interested in what you find appropriate, drop me a line. I’m mulling over the idea myself, as you might have inferred. No room on the current, unfinished layout, but in the future…
Dean