Chet and Jerry,

Thank you very much for the information. Do either of
you have a diagram of this car you could share. It
would be interesting to look at a possible kitbash.

Regards,

Mike

--- Chet French <cfrench@...> wrote:

--- In STMFC@..., "Jerry" <jrs060@m...>
wrote:

Well Mike your not going to get any help from

the "West Coast

Brain Trust" on this one. What your are

discribing here is the

IC rebuild of it's USRA composite gondola cars

done at Centralia

shops in I believe 1948. They were 2 bay, and

because of the

rebuilding, low in stature height, and longer in

length than a

normal 2 bay off-set side hopper. It was simply

an easy fix of

a hole lot of old worn-out gondola cars. One

must remember the

environment this was done in after the war, as

thay would say

in RAILWAY AGE magazine, "To build or to

rebuild".

I can personal remember many IC coal trains in

the mid 1950's,

and out of a 100 car drag to the BRC in Chicago,

10 or so

would always be the rebuilds. They were quit

prevalent in the

late 40's, through the late 50's.

Mike and Jerry,

The cars in question were built, or more correctly
converted, into
twin hoppers by the IC from former gondolas
numbered in the 90000-
93970 series, (original numbers 214750-218749). The
first group was
converted in 1945 and numbered 75000-76999. The
second group were
converted in 1946 and 1947 and numbered 77000-78965.
Photos of these
cars show original built dates of 1924 and 25.
Quite a few of these
cars were still in service in 1960 when I hired out
on the IC, but
they rapidly disappeared within the next few years
By 1962, the IC
was using their number series on new 11'-10" height
twin hoppers
being built that year.

The cars had an inside length of 41'-3", and the
hoppers were 16'-2"
apart at the bottom of the openings. Their 9'-7"
height made them
stand out in a train of IC hoppers, most of which
were 10'-8" in
height. I have not looked into the way to model
these cars, but I
have been promoted them to a familiar resin car
pattern maker for a
few years.

Chet French
Dixon, IL

--- In STMFC@..., Mike Aufderheide

<mononinmonon@y...>

wrote:
Looking through some books recently, a few

interesting

IC hoppers have stuck out. They have ribbed

sides with

a short flat panel above. On one car the upper

panel

looked to have stampings at a regular interval.

They

look very similar to the rebuilt PRR H22a coke

cars (a

la Bowser), that is low hoppers with an extended

side.

In an IC book I was looking at they were very
prevailant. The two numbers I was able to see

are

77036 and 75373. The hopper bottoms are in

shadow in

all cases so I don't know how many bays they

are.

Even with the sides extended their height is

about a

foot lower than the typical offset-side IC twin
hoppers. Does anyone know about these cars and

how to

model them?

Thanks,

Mike Aufderheide

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