I’m modeling a contemporary paper mill and sawmill setup, and have a few of the mega-sized Walthers Greenville 7000 cu woodchip hoppers, but was wondering what other kinds of hoppers might be used by prototype railroads, especially short lines or regionals…
Is there another kind of hopper that is used today with some regularity for woodchip service?
Does anyone have knoweldge on this they could pass along?
Besides the walthers pieces, there is nothing out there that is available in terms of dedicated woodchip hoppers. I have a tight mountain branch, and am hoping that I can use some smaller hoppers for variety, to take less space and perhaps to take the curve a bit easier.
Rcent practice out here in the Northwest involves use of the Gunderson 60-ft woodchip gondolas. These are equipped with an end door for tilt-up unloading. These were purchased new by Great Northern, Northern Pacific, SP, UP and other western railroads in the late 60s and can still be found today. BN also bought them in the 70s. Montana Rail Link owns severa as well. Before that, the common car of choice was the GS style of drop-bottom gondola equipped with wooden side extensions-also used for sugar beets on the SP. Hope this helps.
Wisconsin central used old Soo Line boxcars to transport wood chips, I think? You may want to check on it. But the boxcars had remove doors. They kept the wood chips in with paper and 2 by 4s where the doors use to be.
WC was pretty inventive, we’re they. [:D] Boxcars with doors pulled off…will have to look at that option.
Gunderson 60 foot chip hoppers…oh that some model maker would make one… I think LBF made some, but they seem to be out of business, i guess. Can’t find 'em.
The Greenvilles I have are really cool, but they’re also really huge, especially on my smaller type layout.
The old TrainMiniature line had 2 bay hoppers with extended sides that were based on some eastern Prototype for wood chip service. Walthers took over the line but I can’t remember if they released the wood chip cars.
I don’t know what scale your in but, I took one of my “FON du LAC” type boxcars and put brown packing paper and tooth picks on the inside to model those. Sorry I still can’t find any photos yet.
Bangor and Aroostook (BAR) had a sizable fleet of wood chip cars converted from 40’ box cars. They took off the doors and welded steel plate over the opening; and added about 2 feet extension to the tops.
The CNR used to use old 40’ boxcars with the roof removed. They added sheet metal extensions (might even have been cut-down sides from another 40 footer) to extend the height by 3’ or 4’ - about the same as a hi-cube boxcar. The doors were either welded shut or the openings were plated over.
For the wood chip loads you can make you own. first collect the saw dust from a table saw or regular saw. Then take some extruded foam and cut it down so it can fit the hopper. Then you can carve a slope in the middle or just leave it flat. Them take Elmer’s glue(or what ever your paste your ground foam down) and smear it on the foam so there’s a light coat of glue. Then take your saw dust and sprinkle it on the foam untill you have good coverage. You might want to fine something more coarse than saw dust depending on your scale.
That looks like a Western Maryland twin bay hopper. Examining the extended sides appears to me that it might make a good project from syrene peices… has anyone data as in measurements for one of those types of extended sides? Such as hieght in scale feet and parts suggestions?
Ive always wanted woodchip hoppers but the current offerings of the monster 7000 cubic yarders are just plain too big and nothing my little eastern road can use.
On the Gunderson woodchip gons, Walthers used to manufacture them in HO. I have 4 of them. They might be findable on e-bay. Another option to consider is what the Milwaukee Road did to obtain cars for the service. They converted many of their home-built horizontal-rib boxcars into chip cars by welding plating over the door openings. Then they removed the roofs and added, in some cases, a swinging door at the A end. Others were left with original ends. Since the Milwaukee rib-sided cars are still available from a couple different sources, they could be easily kitbashed into Woodchip gons.
I may look into that Milwaukee Road style kitbash, sounds manageable and fun and I think i’ll try that. I looked up the Hubert’s (LBF) Gundersons, and yup, they have 'em and they look great, but you can’t buy 'em…no online ordering and no reference to anywhere to buy them. And they’re not even listed on Walthers, and anyone who is anyone is at least listed on Walthers, it’s the touchstone. maybe they’re just starting out or something, but that’s a heck of a way to run a business!
I saw the old Walthers Gundersons, but as you say, they’re gone. I wish Walthers would keep in circulation at least some of each type of freight car, instead of pulling the entire line as they do often. Especially when the category, like woodchip hoppers, is so lean across the community.
Finally I have found the pictures of What WC used for a LONG time to haul wood chips out of Ashland. (I think they got loaded in Ashland.)
These cars where basically WC junk cars. These cars where mainly used way up in Northern WI and the UP of MI. The most likely way these cars got filled is probably by pipes. (I’m not sure how they do it, but I think they loaded these like they load old semi trailers with wood chips) To keep the wood chips in the crew would put paper and 2x4 or any old scrap lumber where the doors where. To unload them they probably cut the paper and use a skid steer to unload them. Here are 3 galleries of the WC chip cars.
I know that down south they used Giant Hopppers. Walthers has produced them in the past. They tried using them in Oregon on the Central Oregon & Pacific but after they tipped some of them over they decided to go back to the Gunderson style cars.
I shot these pictures on the Southern, around 1970. Never saw any of these but the one time! (Maybe they were on their way to the scrapper?)
The doors were removwed and a steel plate welded in the opening. Some of the pictures you can see where a slope sheet was added inside (you can see the marks of the welds on the side of the car). The brake gear was moved inside the B-end, under the slope sheet, and drop doors added underneath. The doors were operated by chain hoists mounted on the car sides. Car sides were also extended about 2 feet.
