Today while making some purchases on Ebay today I ran across Peabody Hoppers. I am curious about how many different manufactures there are. Some I saw today were AHM, Life Like, Athearn. What is the history of the manufactures ? Who built what when ? Is there a mold that has been passed around ?
YGW
I had an Athearn peabody quad hoppeer in the early 60s.
Same for me. Athearn molds are different from AHM or Lifelike. Those had truck mouted couplers and friction pins to mount the trucks; Athearns had body mounted trucks mounted with a screw. The detail was better as well.
Which hopper? There have been quads, triples and I think Accurail even made a twin in that yellow Peabody scheme.
It was a popular color scheme and a foobie on most railroads as the Peabody Short Line mostly ran from a coal mine near Freeburg Illinois to the barge loading facility on the Mississippi at East St Louis, IL. Not sure how many got into interchange service. The IC bought the railroad in 1960 and it’s possible some of the Peabody hoppers made into interchange service then, but for most of their lives they were in captive service.
JWhite - what is a foobie ?
“Foobie” is a term given to a model locomotive or piece of rolling stock that is decorated in the colors of a railroad that never actually owned that item. Like a GG1 in Great Northern colors.
This video/song seem’s appropriate for this thread, along with shots of Models & Proto’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEy6EuZp9IY
Take Care! [:D]
Frank