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Covered hoppers of the 1930's to early 1940's RTR in HO scale, better quality ones

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  • From: west coast
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Posted by rrebell on Tuesday, December 8, 2015 2:09 PM

In fact I need to pull them out to remember what I bought back when.

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Posted by rrebell on Saturday, December 12, 2015 11:42 PM

Well, just a note that I got the cars, they are some of the best I have seen. Was worried at first because I have had issues with metal roof walks before from Intermountain, but these were perfect.

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Posted by BEAUSABRE on Sunday, March 29, 2020 9:02 AM

The H23 series were four bay open hoppers with coke racks - and although the plans were approved, they were never built http://prr.railfan.net/diagrams/PRRdiagrams.html?diag=h23_h23a.gif&sel=hopp&sz=sm&fr=

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Posted by doctorwayne on Sunday, March 29, 2020 11:22 AM

That drawing looks to be very close to PRR's H-22 coke car, which Bowser offers...

...but with a larger cubic capacity.  With its partially open sides, not an especially appropriate choice to be converted to a covered car.

ACY Tom
The Varney "PRR H23" mentioned above is a twin hopper with a roof, and it represents a car that may have never existed....

The Varney car was nothing at all like the PRR covered hoppers, but merely an imaginative use of one of Varney's already-existing models.

Wayne

 

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Sunday, March 29, 2020 4:49 PM

I also demand a certain detail fidelity, so I have no RTR covered hoppers.

I have three brass models, thee built from F&C kits, one coverted from a Kadee undecorated car, and two re-detailed Eastrn Car Works kits.

If you want a nice varied fleet of 30s to 50s covered hoppers with good detail, that is your pathway.

 

-Kevin

Living the dream.

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Posted by rrebell on Monday, March 30, 2020 12:08 AM

I picked up a bunch of Tichy ones, but they have to be built. We will see if someone dose RTR like intermountain before I build them, they do build other Tichy cars.

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Posted by gmpullman on Monday, March 30, 2020 12:17 AM

Not quite to brass, Kadee or Intermountain standards but the Bowser line fills a nice compromise:

 UCOX_205-Covered Hopper by Edmund, on Flickr

 Cement2 by Edmund, on Flickr

 

https://www.bowser-trains.com/new/70ton2020.html

Good Luck, Ed

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Posted by doctorwayne on Monday, March 30, 2020 11:14 AM

Here are the MDC cars which I mentioned earlier.  I removed the overly thick cast-on ladders and grabirons, replacing them with ones formed from .012" phosphor-bronze wire....

I also replaced the original round hatches and the roofwalks, using parts from Bowser's ACF covered hoppers....

...and upgraded the outlet gates, too, again using parts available from Bowser...

While covered hoppers weren't all that common in the late '30s, they've always been among my favourite car-types, so modeller's licence ensures that they're very common on my freelanced layout, with almost two dozen in service.

Wayne

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Posted by rrebell on Monday, March 30, 2020 7:25 PM

But you got more talent than me, I do good on scenery but rolling stock, only so so.

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Posted by rrinker on Monday, March 30, 2020 8:26 PM

 Then depending on the railroad, you can make them the wya the prototype did, for models that actually appeared on the railroad in the 30's - they took open hoppers and added roofs to them, and changed the discharge gates. The Reading LOa cars were built exactly this way. Accurail has the open hopper, the discharge gates are fairly easy to make with some filing and plastic shapes. The roof is the hard part- I need to play around with a 3D CAD and have the 3D printed. I have 3 of them in progress, using now unavailable Micro Mark roof stock which is perfectly sized and shaped to fir on the Accurail open hoppers - just cut to length. Then the hatches can be build up of squares of styrene plus some brass wire, add some roofwalks, paint and decal. This was done in the 30's as cement traffic was building and to keep the shop workers busy and at work during the Depression. Other railroads probbaly did similar things. Wholesale adoption of purpose-built covered hoppers didn;t come until much later. Bowser offers their cars decorated for Reading - but they are cars the Reading acquired much later, in the 60's, even though the original owner got them much earlier.

                                       --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by doctorwayne on Tuesday, March 31, 2020 11:41 AM

rrebell

But you got more talent than me, I do good on scenery but rolling stock, only so so.

Thanks for your kind assessment, but don't sell yourself short...this isn't a contest and you've shown some very nicely-done work. Big Smile

I'm curious about the Tichy kits which you mentioned earlier...are they the models of the D&H single sheathed boxcars with roof hatches and underbody discharge gates?  I was originally going to buy a couple, but instead ended-up scratchbuilding the 36' Dominion/Fowler cars (shown earlier), as I couldn't afford the Tichy ones at the time.
If they're offering a kit for an actual purpose-built covered hopper, I've not yet heard of them.

Wayne

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Posted by rrebell on Wednesday, June 3, 2020 11:38 AM

doctorwayne

 

 
rrebell

But you got more talent than me, I do good on scenery but rolling stock, only so so.

 

Thanks for your kind assessment, but don't sell yourself short...this isn't a contest and you've shown some very nicely-done work. Big Smile

I'm curious about the Tichy kits which you mentioned earlier...are they the models of the D&H single sheathed boxcars with roof hatches and underbody discharge gates?  I was originally going to buy a couple, but instead ended-up scratchbuilding the 36' Dominion/Fowler cars (shown earlier), as I couldn't afford the Tichy ones at the time.
If they're offering a kit for an actual purpose-built covered hopper, I've not yet heard of them.

Wayne

 

Dis not see your reply till now, yes the D&H.

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