Making a cover for open hoppers

[Union Pacific 428]

Hi all,

In the 1950s several railroads added roofs to some of their hoppers to create more covered hoppers. I’m looking to build a few covers to go on some open hoppers I have. I was thinking that boxcar roofs or covered hopper roofs would be a good place to start for this project, but the only standalone freight car roofs of any kind I have found are round boxcar roofs from Central Valley and I’m not sure a round roof would look right. Anyone have any ideas on where to get standalone boxcar/covered hopper roofs in the 40’ range, HO scale? 

[Wolf359]

I don't know of anywhere you could buy those. But, if you have reference photos and don't mind measuring and cutting the same thing multiple times, I would suggest scratch building from sheet styrene.

[RR_Mel]

How many roofs are you looking for?  I did a quick scan of Shapeways and didn’t find any but there 50,000 listings under HO.  I’d check their site but it will take quite a bit of time.

 

When I need something unusual I try to make it myself.  I would chop up a boxcar roof to fit the hoppers then when you have a satisfactory roof make a mold of it then make as many casting as you need.  I haven’t attempted anything quite that large but I’m sure it can be done.

 

I’ve made molds of boxcar Van Dorn ends and they come out perfect.

 

 

Mel

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

 

[doctorwayne]

Red Caboose offered separate "steel" roofs at one time, and you may be able to get them from Intermountain nowadays.  They are, however, 40' roofs, so you may need to adjust the length to suit your hoppers.

One of them is shown in this thread, some way in, if you wish to check it out for suitability. 

The fact that it's not a ribbed-type roof probably makes it more suitable for adding roof hatches.  None of the ones which I have came with running boards, but Tichy offers suitable "wood" or "steel" ones or you could make your own.

For suitable hatches, contact Bowser, as they offer separately the very nicely-detailed hatches which come with their covered hopper kits, like this one...

I bought a bunch of them (they come as a sprue of detail parts for those covered hoppers) which also includes details for the discharge hoppers (probably not suitable for ex-open hoppers, though).
 
I used them to convert some old MDC Pullman-Standard hoppers into stand-in ACF cars, as shown below...

Wayne

[SeeYou190]

Yarmouth Model Works makes a resin conversion kit to change an Intermountain covered hopper to a different style covered hopper.

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That is probably the easiest thing to start with.

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-Kevin

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[NHTX]

       Intermountain does offer its 40 foot 1937 AAR boxcar's "Murphy" roof seperately as part P40700-06.  Visit https://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/hodetail.htm      

[dehusman]

Really for a conversion from a hopper to a covered hopper, it would be almost easier and way cheaper to just make a roof out of sheet styrene and then add som covered hopper hatch castings (which could be scratched using two sizes of styrene squares).

["JaBear"]

dehusman

Really for a conversion from a hopper to a covered hopper, it would be almost easier and way cheaper to just make a roof out of sheet styrene and then add som covered hopper hatch castings (which could be scratched using two sizes of styrene squares).

Which is what I did here, mainly using .020" styrene sheet.

DSCF1636 by Bear, on Flickr

Cheers, the Bear.

[Union Pacific 428]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I will check out the different products to start with and look into building the roofs from scratch as well. I only need 2 so it should be straightforward. Thanks again.