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

[rrebell]

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.

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.

[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.

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

[rrinker]

 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

 

[rrebell]

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

[doctorwayne]

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

[gmpullman]

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

[rrebell]

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.

[SeeYou190]

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

[doctorwayne]

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

 

[BEAUSABRE]

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=

[rrebell]

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.

[rrebell]

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

[rrinker]

 The Kato ones barely classify as kits. You don't even need glue. And they are tough, I had one fall to the cement floor and become a kit again. Once I found all tthe pieces, just put it back together, nothing was actually broken. All that was missing was one knuckle spring in one of the Kadees I put in it.

                --Randy

 

[rrebell]

Got a set of Katos that I bought RTR built by someone else, those will proubly go too.

[7j43k]

mobilman44

Hi,

When I was building up my roster of HO Pre 1960 RR cars, finding covered hoppers for the early years was quite difficult.   I eventually got quite a few, mostly ATSF and IC - but none were RTR.  

The most difficult find was the 3 car ATSF set put out by Kato, which I eventually got off Ebay.  They are kits too.

I realize that a number of MRs don't care to build RR car kits, but I would urge you to give it a try.   Worst case would be "you could not do it".  Best case would be a RR car you would be especially proud to show off.

In any case, I suggest you make it a routine to search Ebay every few days.  It may take awhile, but sooner or later something that works for you will show up.

 

 

Some years ago, I was especially happy to pick up a 3 pack of Kato's GN covered hoppers.  There wasn't much else out there (as noted in quote).  When, more recently, the better detailed Intermountain GN covered hoppers showed up at my house, I was also happy to sell those same Katos.  To a guy who was happy to buy them.  At a lower price.

Lotta happiness, there.

 

Ed

[rrebell]

mobilman44

Hi,

When I was building up my roster of HO Pre 1960 RR cars, finding covered hoppers for the early years was quite difficult.   I eventually got quite a few, mostly ATSF and IC - but none were RTR.  

The most difficult find was the 3 car ATSF set put out by Kato, which I eventually got off Ebay.  They are kits too.

I realize that a number of MRs don't care to build RR car kits, but I would urge you to give it a try.   Worst case would be "you could not do it".  Best case would be a RR car you would be especially proud to show off.

In any case, I suggest you make it a routine to search Ebay every few days.  It may take awhile, but sooner or later something that works for you will show up.

 

In fact I restore old wood car kits but even with all my knowlege I find RTR a better option, now that I have these I will be able to unload all my tichy kits of this type. Yes I could build them but would prefer spending time building buildings of which there are few RTR of good quality so I can finish my railroad (at least to the point of not feeling like I have t6o work on it all the time).

[rrebell]

 

 

rrebell

Well I bought 5 of the Intermountain in Union Pacific, 1940.....

 

 

Like these ones?

http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/html/48606.htm

Cheers, the Bear

 

In fact one of the numbers was the exact same!!!!!

[mobilman44]

Hi,

When I was building up my roster of HO Pre 1960 RR cars, finding covered hoppers for the early years was quite difficult.   I eventually got quite a few, mostly ATSF and IC - but none were RTR.  

The most difficult find was the 3 car ATSF set put out by Kato, which I eventually got off Ebay.  They are kits too.

I realize that a number of MRs don't care to build RR car kits, but I would urge you to give it a try.   Worst case would be "you could not do it".  Best case would be a RR car you would be especially proud to show off.

In any case, I suggest you make it a routine to search Ebay every few days.  It may take awhile, but sooner or later something that works for you will show up.

["JaBear"]

rrebell

Well I bought 5 of the Intermountain in Union Pacific, 1940.....

Like these ones?

http://www.intermountain-railway.com/ho/html/48606.htm

Cheers, the Bear

[rrebell]

Well I bought 5 of the Intermountain in Union Pacific, 1940 on e-bay, almost got the whole set of 6 but got outbid on one, suits me as I only needed 3 to keep the right ratio of cars but the price was right.

[G Paine]

MEC had some covered hoppers for cement service with the square hatches that were built around 1915. The ones with the round hatches are Airslides that started coming into service in the early 50s.

[DSchmitt]

[quote user="ACY"]

The Varney "PRR H23" mentioned above is a twin hopper with a roof, and it represents a car that may have never existed. PRR's H30's were not rebuilt from coal hoppers. They were built new. One PRR H21 four bay hopper was converted into the unique covered hopper class H21d number 254250. They also had a small group (for PRR) of over 200 class GLb coal hoppers that were rebuilt into GLe two bay covered hoppers.

In my earlier post, I forgot to mention F&C's B&O N-34 wagon top covered hopper kit, which represents a car first introduced in the late 1930's.

B&O was another road that applied hatches and floor openings to USRA single sheath boxcars, turning them into a sort of covered hopper. 

I realize most of my suggestions have been kits, but the simple fact is that kits are the only way to get there unless you're talking about buying brass models, which often require painting, decaling, and usually some tweaking. If you don't feel up to building these kits, you might want to think about paying somebody to build them for you. You wouldn't be the first one to do that. 

Tom

(edited)

 

 

Thankyou for the corrections regarding the H30.

Somewhere I have read that the Varney cars are pretty close in apperance to some converted open top cars but I do not know if that is correct..

[dti406]

The Kato car is actually a GATC bersion of the ACF Car.

If the can be found (usually on E-Bay) E&B Valley (Eastern Car Works) makes a flat kit of the ACF Car with finer grabs than the other cast kits.

This is an E&B Valley kit, but I replaced the cast roofwalk with a Plano replacement, painted with scalecoat II gray and lettered with Highball Graphics decals.

Rick J

[7j43k]

"Railway Prototype Cyclopedia" did a 3-part 249 page study of the ACF designed 1958 cuft covered hopper.  The first cars were delivered in 1937.  

 

Below are the private owners of the cars that have build dates earlier than 1943:

GACX, HWCX, ILDX, SHPX

 

Below are the railroads that owned the cars that have build dates earlier than 1943:

 

ACL, ACY, BS, ATSF, CG, CIL, CNW, C&O, CRR, CSS, DMIR, DT&I, ERIE, GN, IC, KCS, L&N, M&STL, MILW, M-I, NC&STL, NKP, NP, PM, RI, SAL, SOO, SOU, VGN, WAB

Some of the above also bought cars 1943 and later.  The cars were built until 1952.  And some railroads bought only after 1943.

 

I believe Kato, Bowser, and Intermountain all do models of this car.  The Intermountain is probably the best.

 

Ed

 

 

 

[gmpullman]

rrebell

Just on a personal note some of this naming of lines and changing of naming of lines sometimes gets me confused,

You can say that again! 

Gold; Silver; Trainline; Proto; Mainline; Master; add to that, BlueBox (Life-Like OR Athearn) Classic; Retro; and the ever popular...

Superheterodyne!

When Soundtraxx came up with the Econammi I thought  then there's WOWsound?

Gotta love Marketing!

Ed

[rrebell]

Oh, by the way I forgot to say thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[rrebell]

gmpullman

 

 

rrinker

Of course the only thing mentioend so far that meet's the OP's requirement of RTR

 

 

Some of the Bowser cars are "Executive" line. They are RTR.

Ed

 

See, that is what was not known by me as all the ones I have ever seen must not have been the Executive line. Just on a personal note some of this naming of lines and changing of naming of lines sometimes gets me confused, especially with Atlas and now that I have expanded my list of types, Bowser!!!!!

[gmpullman]

rrinker

Of course the only thing mentioend so far that meet's the OP's requirement of RTR

Some of the Bowser cars are "Executive" line. They are RTR.

Ed

[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. PRR's H30's were not rebuilt from coal hoppers. They were built new. One PRR H21 four bay hopper was converted into the unique covered hopper class H21d number 254250. They also had a small group (for PRR) of over 200 class GLb coal hoppers that were rebuilt into GLe two bay covered hoppers.

In my earlier post, I forgot to mention F&C's B&O N-34 wagon top covered hopper kit, which represents a car first introduced in the late 1930's.

B&O was another road that applied hatches and floor openings to USRA single sheath boxcars, turning them into a sort of covered hopper. 

I realize most of my suggestions have been kits, but the simple fact is that kits are the only way to get there unless you're talking about buying brass models, which often require painting, decaling, and usually some tweaking. If you don't feel up to building these kits, you might want to think about paying somebody to build them for you. You wouldn't be the first one to do that. 

Tom

(edited)