Hi Gene;
I haven't researched the AF hopper, but I'd be willing
to guess that it is, in fact, based on the LNE offset
side cars. Note that AF in the early period did at
least make an attempt at following prototype; their
flatcar is modeled on a CNW car from the 1931 Car
Builders Cyc and was first offered lettered CNW. The
gondola was based on a T&P car in the same source and,
by golly, the earliest versions were so lettered. They
didn't paint, letter or number the cars
prototypically, but did choose a prototypical road
name; we won't talk about the X29 boxcar.... but the
stock car does follow a Missouri Pacfic design.... so
it stands to reason that they lettered so many hoppers
LNE because that was the original inspiration.
Meanwhile, there was an article on prototype hoppers
by Pard Lively in the May 1972 issue of the S Gauge
Herald (so says the NASG index) and a follow-on I
believe in the next issue (although NOT shown in the
index) in which Frank Titman built most of the
prototypes using the AF car as a base, including D&H
composite "Selley" hoppers, PRR GLa cars, etc.
Inspired by an RMC article on building a PRR GL from
an Athearn hopper I modified AM's ribside car to
resemble an older hopper by moving the bolsters and
trucks about 6 scale inches toward the ends and adding
new end sills and "older" details. The resulting car
is too large, but does look the part somewhat and is a
bit lower as a result of keeping the sloped part of
the bolster against the slope sheets on the car end as
they moved out. I'll try to post a photo later. Better
results could be obtained by lowering the top and
adding end sills and other details to an SHS U.S.R.A.
car.
Hope this helps;
Pieter Roos
--- ecphora123 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In October's Model Railroader, there appears an
> article on early 20th
> century steel hoppers. While the HO models shown
> are ribbed, I wonder
> about Gilbert's two bay hoppers. They appear to be
> somewhat offset in
> design. I perused several on line prototype lists,
> but didn't find
> information. Sorry, if I just missed an entry, but
> what was the closest
> prototype for this car? Perhaps as others have
> probably done, it would
> make some nice starting material for a scale
> conversion. I have not as
> yet researched old Herald or Gaugian articles for
> examples.
>
> Thanks in advance, Gene Cimino
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
Pieter E. Roos
Railroad Home Page at
www.geocities.com/pieter_roos/pieter_1.html
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