John, I would agree with your comments, but it was the Southern's Big John covered hopper along with changes in rate structures in the 60's that led to the change-over to covered hoppers from

The weights, car and hatch dimensions are similar to Lacakawanna covered hoppers purchased from AC&F in 1950-53. And they were cement haulers. F&C has kits for these cars. Ken

Bill: Yes, I knew that when I was writing my reply. Point is, before the 1960's covered hoppers were almost always used for dense, bulk products such as cement, lime, fertilizers, kaolin, carbon

While researching for the CGW Color Guide I was handed a list of covered hopper assignments. The CGW covered hoppers are of the same type and same age as those in Bill Michaels original

The latest edition of the NYCentral Modeler has just been uploaded on the NYCSHS website. www.nycshs.org Be sure to check this one out. NYCSHS member Charlie Crawford's layout models the NYC

I just checked the January 1954 ORER (do not have an earlier one) and all of the covered hoppers owned by the Milwaukee Road were 29 ft 3 in long but had 70 Ton capacity. This would support that they

Gene, after looking at photos again, I agree with you. And I have forwarded that information to Gene Green. The photo that prompted his question is one I gave him a few weeks ago, which I took at

Sorry, John, but while what you are talking about was true for covered hoppers from the mid 60's and later, Bill's question refers to cars that had a date of 1949 and in particular they are Kato

Doug I don't think that car was done by Robert Leners. I think the car was built from a kit offered by Rails Unlimited. Gene Deimling

They were never in revenue service as far as I know. The number series 200000 and above was for company service cars, and lists several thousand cars without specifying what any of them are in the

When were these in revenue service, and what was their number series? Al Brown, Melbourne, Fla.

Bill, were you aware that these company built (from box cars) were built for non-revenue purposes? Near absolute lack of evidence that these were ever sent off-line with an interchanged load. -Andy

Railway Prototype Cyclopedia, Vol 16 at page 62 reprints an ad from General American Transportation Corp and in the last paragraph it claims leadership in “the new insulated hopper cars from bulk

A question that I have been unsuccessfully seeking an answer for a number of years might be more revalent now. Central Valley has recently released a model of a Northern Pacific 41' flat car. There

Au contraire. First of all the size of the car. Two or three bay covered hoppers carry high density products such as cement, kaolin or lime (or in the good old days, carbon black). Four and five

Bill Thank you for the information. That helps. Blessings Bill

Bill, Dring that era, covered hoppers were not used for grain... In fact that didn't happen until the "Big John" covered hoppers of the Southern in the early 60's. lading like flour wasn't shipped in

How do you tell (or can you tell) if a covered hopper is used for cement, or grain, or other loading. I am asking concerning physical/mechanical devices on the car such as top hatches and hopper

On Thu Mar 14, 2013 George Courtney asked about lettering an S scale 40-ft double-door steel boxcar as an OSL (UP) car and possibly using slogan letters for the reporting marks. FWIW, the SAW

Gene I believe that model was built by Robert Leners. Here are Dave Hussy's photos of that meet. There is no photo of the MILW car, but photos of a couple other cars he displayed.