Did a some looking around and found a little bit out. In N scale Intermountain Railway makes a PS-2CD 4750 hopper, Micro-Trains makes an Evans 4750 hopper, and Red Caboose makes the PS2 in single and 3-pack (special order through Walthers). I found enough info out to know that MILW used the PS-2CD for 4750 hoppers, but did they use the Evans? I’m still hoping to find some Milwaukee Road ACF 4650 cylindrical hoppers, I really don’t want to have to paint them myself, right around 25 of them total if I get all the ones I want.
If you are looking for Milw 4650 cubic feet American car & Foundry Series 99995 thru 99999 LO 100 ton cylindrical hoppers, InterMountain Railway makes them in N scale. or look on Ebay under model trains.
The Milwaukee Road had quite a collection of grain hoppers:
PS2 - 2893 cu ft
PS2 - 3000 cu ft
PS2 - 4000 cu ft
PS2 - 4427 cu ft
PS2 - 4740 cu ft
PS2 - 4750 cu ft
ACF - 4650 cu ft
MAGOR - 4000 cu ft
As you can see, most of these were Pullman Standard, and varied from 70 ton to 100 ton capacity. I am unaware of the Evans design, but it looks very close in looks to the ACF design. All had 3 unloading bays. The Milwaukee also had a good sized fleet of single bay and twin bay ‘Air Slide’ cars in flour service.
Jim
I’ve found 4750 and 4650’s sold in three packs and individuals, and I think 4740’s along with the small PS2 2-bay’s sold in individuals. I’m just saying 2-bay because you have 2893 up there and I think the pair I have were different. I’m basically representing a short line that takes over a bunch of MILW line in WI, some of their engines, as soon as I decide which ones and how many (at the crucial 2/85 date they had 11 different still active locomotives) and some of the cars. I guess they kind of ‘snitched’ them away from SOO. All the engines I will model will be kept in MILW paint, just have my short line name painted of the lettering on the hoods and the herald on the cab painted overand they will all keep the MILW road number. I’ve had to do some research to get that. The crummy part is I won’t have enough room to model any kind of good sized (25 cars or more) grain service, which bums me out, I really wanted to do that. Intermountain makes the PS-2CD 4750’s in quite a bit of variation, 6 road numbers in gray paint and 6 more in yellow paint, plus 5 numbers for the 4650’s. From what I got they only had one of those though, but that doesn’t make much sense. I’m was thinking of doing some kind of log train. I basically wanted 2 or 3 runs that HAD to use a 6 axle diesel and then a single local way freight that used one 4 axle diesel, but have 3 or 4 different loco’s to use. I will also add some SF motive power in there, I really like the yellow bonnit paint scheme they had for freight engine.
What all did MILW use the small 2 bay PS2’s for though? They’re only like 30 or 35 scale feet long so I could have a nice longer consist of these in a fairly small space. Or even the 3000 and 4000 PS2’s, if I remember right they were the same 2-bay PS2 design just with 3 bays. And what is this MAGOR one? Never heard of that before.
All of the one I listed above are 3 bay cars of 70-100 ton capacity. The 2 bay cars are ‘cement’ hoppers - basically 70 ton capacity for ‘dense’ loading(like cement). The difference in the grey vs yellow paint scheme was un-lined vs lined interiors. The small MAGOR order were aluminum cars - inpainted with block black lettering.
Jim
I guess the small hoppers are out. I really don’t have room to model it, not to mention I don’t really see the concrete factory by the house getting PS2’s of cement, all the 2 bay cylindricals I do believe ACF. Not quite sure. There is always a crap load of them there, but when the trains come through they never have any of those hoppers in fiddle yard behind the apartment (just 4750’s, 4740’s, and 4650’s for the rendering plant), and I’ve never really seen trucks go through either. I’ve seen a 2 trucks there this month. But I know they do stuff, the hopper count does vary, I have seen crews drop some hoppers off, and more importantly I even have a picture of them spotting a car in a covered bay with a trackmobile. I’ve looked but I can’t even tell you the places name. The only reason I have a guess is because I kept running into a listing for a concrete business with no address, all the other concrete business included addresses so I knew where they were. It did give a number but I really don’t think I would get to far by asking them “what’s the name of your business and what exactly do you do over there?”
Most of the cement covered hoppers seem to be ACF Center-Flow style 2-bay cars. Soo had a batch that were built as 3-bay P-S cars, then had them cut down into 2-bay cars.
I used to switch a cement place in Madison. They were real hot to get the Soo cars unloaded first, as railroad owned cars cost more in per diem, car hire, etc. The “X” cars (private owner, reporting marks ending in X) sat for a while. In the winter they were pretty slow, but the summer could see 20 cars a day (or more) unloaded.
MILW served a glass factory in Burlington, WI. They get 2-bay CHs of sand. Still using some old MILW cars, 96000 series. About 3000 cu. ft. I don’t know of any available models.
There is also a sand mine in Utley, WI, that loads foundry sand. Usually in 2-bay CHs, Center-Flow and ribbed side.
MILW had a total of 5 ACF 4650s. The rest were ribbed side.
This sorta came up because I was looking around at Deluxe Innovations (half their stuff in the Walthers '08 N/Z catalogue isn’t even listed on the web site now) and they have a 3 pack set of the 2-bay PS2’s with square hatches that I really liked. I’m still having trouble picking out trains too. Short line isn’t big enough to be using like F7’s and such. I could honestly get away with using all switchers and just have a caboose taging along, but no one makes an N scale 70 tonner. I think I might mave my RR get it’s traction sand in hoppers maybe.