ERIE RR COVERED HOPPER #4065

[BEAUSABRE]

In the April 2020 MR, reader Dave Burket has some questions concerning a model of an Erie RR covered hopper with saw tooth hoppers #4065

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LIFE-LIKE-No-8514-COVERED-HOPPER-ERIE-RAPIDO-COUPLERS-/322372871640

Note the conventional hopper grates

I have what is probably the same car that my mom brought home from a flea market for me back in the Seventies. My impression was that dated from the Sixties, but may be wrong. Forget who made it, but here is a version made recently

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Erie-4065-Black-Hopper-With-Top-Train-Car-HO-Gauge-Scale-tr1149-/264224746241?oid=143259344448

Mr Burket asks if it is prototypically accurate and specifically, what sort of commodity could be carried without leakage through the conventional hopper gates

Answers

1. Sorta - it seems to be based a combination of the following Erie car

https://www.brasstrains.com/classic/Product/Detail/039374/

and the PRR's class GLe (which has saw tooth hoppers)

http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=gle.gif&sel=hopp&sz=sm&fr=

2. Thing is, neither had conventional gates - but sliding sealable gates. It looks like conventional gates would leak too much. So the answer to question 2 is - sadly - "nothing'. Essentially, what we have is is a conventional hopper with a roof (which is what the PRR did with the GLe, but they installed sealable grates)

So its not prototical. You can

1. Sell the car

2. Get out the saw, modeling knives, putty and sand paper and graft sliding gates from a donor car onto it

3. Not worry about it, enjoy the car and if any one asks, just say it's an example of an earlier, cruder era of model railroading

My choice is number 3. but wour milage may vary

 

 

 

[dknelson]

Yes this was not one of Ask MR's finer moments in helping a reader with a question.  I said some things in another thread (about looking for the April Fools Day joke in MR - only to learn there was no Joke this year).  Since then I saw another possible prototype so even if you read this before, read to the end

Dave Nelson:

"That leaves two possibilities, in my opinion, one of which is that there IS no joke and we've been straining our eyesight trying to find it.  The joke that isn't there, like Sherlock Holmes's the dog that didn't bark, can be pretty effective.  

The other possibility, and oh my this might offend Steve Otte if it isn't a joke, is the Ask MR question from Dave Burket of Talmadge OH.  He has an Erie covered hopper No. 4065 with 8 square hatchcovers and sawtooth-angled hopper gates.  The key phrase there is "sawtooth-angled" gates - meaning, like a regular coal hopper has, not like a covered hopper has.  The other key is Erie 4065.  

In other words, he has the (in)famous Varney/Life-Like "covered hopper" (Life-Like called it a cement hopper) where Gordon Varney, having a normal two bay coal hopper in his line of plastic cars, simply plopped a plastic 8 hatch casting on top of it so he could easily and cheaply have a covered hopper in his line. 

The reason this is one of the most famous of all trainset quality car models is that people have been debating for decades over what Varney's prototype could possibly have been - there are only one or two possible candidates -- and many maintain that it is just a total fabrication.  No such thing existed, as Varney created it that is.  I think there has been one thread and perhaps more on this Forum just about that model.

But Steve Otte says "what you have is a model of a very common type of freight car."  A very common model, yes, but not prototype.  So is that the joke?  There is no April 1 punch line or give away.  In fact the questioner wondered how coal hopper gates could contain the sort of material that a covered hopper would carry, and the answer takes pains to assure him that the gates are designed to carry finely grained ladings.  

So far that is the closest I come to an April Fool's joke, but it is only a joke to freight car historians who also have an interest in the foibles of the model railroad industry in the early era of plastic models.  So all 12 of them are laughing at the joke.   

By the way the 1937 Car Builder's Cyclopedia does show an Erie cement hopper similar in outline to the Varney/Life-Like model, but with genuine covered hopper type gates at the bottom.  Numbered 20000.  But the hatch casting Varney made is very much like a D&H covered cement hopper also shown in that Cyc - but it too has regular covered hopper type gates.  But that lonely D&H prototype has created a sort of strange mini-demand for the Varney casting, which is easily popped off the hopper car body.   

Only the National Plate Glass Company's two bay covered hopper in the '37 Cyc has the saw toothed coal hopper type gates at the bottom, and that is the one car that people think the Varney/Life-Like model even vaguely resembles; the body is way different but again Varney was re-using his coal hopper casting.  A Seaboard 4 bay covered hopper for phosphate has saw toothed hoppers but they also have gate latches which are not like a coal hopper. 

I am aware that covers were fabricated for coal hoppers during WWII grain rushes due to a lack of available boxcars."

So that is what I wrote a few weeks ago.  Since then I found a somewhat similar prototype, but ironically I think it dates from AFTER when Varney first offered this mish-mash.  In the 1961 Car Builder's Cyclopedia, page 259, I found a photo of a Maine Central two bay offset type hopper (conventional saw tooth type hopper grates) with a cover, seemingly six large round type hatch covers.  MEC 2400 is the car.  And the load for which a cover was needed but conventional hopper grates served adequately?  I could hardly believe this ...

Clothespins!

Dave Nelson

 

 

[doctorwayne]

BEAUSABRE

...My impression was that dated from the Sixties, but may be wrong....

A bit earlier than that, as I had one of those (and one without the lid) with my first HO trains, in 1955.  The cars were originally made by Varney, and I still have both of mine. albeit as open hoppers. 
I have made a few small upgrades, with some wire grabs and sill steps, and separate ladders, but they still have the original cannonball-size rivets...

I think the trucks are from Train Miniature.  While it's a far cry from what's available nowadays, they're a nice reminder of an earlier and simpler time, and their discrepancies aren't all that noticeable when seen in a train.

Wayne

[cv_acr]

I don't know about the particular ERIE cars, but some of the earliest forms of covered hoppers built in the 1930s were like standard hoppers (with standard hopper gates) with roofs.

http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=sal58102&o=sal

There were also other cars that were actually built as open hoppers that were later modified to add a roof.