Is the Acccurail 3-bay hopper car appropriate for this conversion?
Tim O'Connor answered:
Yes, Accurail's model is better than the Bowser (formerly Stewart) 3-bay triple offset hopper. But the resin roof was made to fit the Stewart body so I'm not sure it would fit the Accurail car.
The photo provided shows a triple hopper built to ARA standard with "stepped" off-sets in the end panels and the "hat" braces at the top of the sides. From other photos I recall that the ATSF did have post WWII AAR standard, triple hoppers. I don't have Richard's book on Santa Fe open top cars so is there information indicating that the Santa Fe built "roofed" hoppers from both types of triple hoppers? For some curious reason Roundhouse (now Athearn) made a model of the ARA off-set side triple hopper in N scale, but not HO.
