My questions are these: One, were these gondolas general use or were they designed for specific loads?
They were general service cars. They hauled pipe, steel products, rebar, coil steel, scrap, aggregates. The MP had similar designs. The brown MP cars were built for the MP and bought by the MP, the black MP cars (black body with white grab irons) were actualy an order purchased by the NdeM, but the NdeM transferred them to MP ownership to pay off back horsepower hour accounts. A black car with white grabs is an NdeM paint scheme.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
These models were one of the nicer items in the old E&C line. A weak point in the original releases (IMHO) was their trucks and wheels - that will be corrected by IM using their wheels and either their trucks or Accurail's. As far as loads, in know that UP used some of theirs for carrying coil steel, but otherwise these seem to be general purpose cars. As the cars have aged I have seen these types of cars on BNSF and on UP carrying scrap or MoW supplies. On both roads the cars somtimes still carry older paint jobs (such as BN or MP)
Gary B.
FRRYKidOne, were these gondolas general use or were they designed for specific loads?
They varied by owner and era. Some owners may have intended the cars for specific service at the time they were built, but this often changes over time. Sheet and coil steel service were common uses for the cars when new.
Two...how easy/hard are Intermountain value line cars to put together? Are there any other parts that I need to provide, e.g. couplers?
To my knowledge these are ready to run. The HO versions have Intermountain's machined metal wheels, and I believe they have Kadee couplers just like the other IM cars in HO (i.e. not plastic knockoffs). The "value line" are re-releases of cars that used to be offered by Hubert's/LBF Company/E&C Shops, so they have cast-on details and in general aren't up to the typical IM standards for extra, stand-alone parts. The quality of the paint and lettering tends to be better than the original manufacturers'. They're comparable to Athearn RTR cars based on older blue box or MDC tooling.
Rob Spangler
Got another one for my forums friends: One of the online shops that I have bought from in the past sent me an email talking about a new item series coming from Intermountain. The specific site for the item is http://www.intermountain-railway.com/distrib/valueline/html/4507008.htm.
While I really don't need any more freight cars, these cars caught my curiousity. I can always use more gondolas on my layout. My questions are these: One, were these gondolas general use or were they designed for specific loads? (The only images I have been able to find are recent enough that these cars were used as maintanance cars. In the era that I model these cars would be brand new.) Two, (not prototype related) how easy/hard are Intermountain value line cars to put together? Are there any other parts that I need to provide, e.g. couplers? (I have never worked with Intermountain cars.)
As usual, thank you in advance for any help the forums can provide.