-----Original Message-----

The Western Pacific also had several groups of these, or similar cars. I
have long wanted several, and would be glad to help you or a
manufacturer with photos or other information. I could also use some SPs
as well.

The earliest WP cars having ballast drop doors were in the 10301-10600
series of cars and were shorties - a meer 30' 2" IL. Has luck has it these
cars are virtually identical to a SP series of cars (no doubt both were
acquired about the same time) in the 13088-13599 series (MWB-50-5?) so for
modeling purposes any photographic or dimensional evidence of one is
probably good for the other.

The WP called these 'coal cars' but I have no doubt they spent much, if not
all, of their existance hauling broken rock out of Oroville and/or smooth
gravel & sand out of the San Ramon valley, which, for the WP, were
significant sources of carloadings.

Some years ago I took a saw to the 40' MDC ballast hopper and sliced out 10'
and lowered the sides a few inches. The drop doors are wrong, the rivits
are grapefruit, and the slope sheet is too shallow (noticible by the too
great of a height of the end interior wall), but the length and height of
the finished model were very close to right and the side panel count was
right, so it's in the ballpark. For building a fleet of good-enuf cars, it
might serve (especially as the task was not that difficult), but it would
not stand up to the closer inspection one expects from this crowd.

As for the late steam era, the WP acquired another series of ballast cars in
the 50's (too late for my interests) -- also rather short. I believe one of
these cars is at the museum in Portola, CA. where, like everything else
there, one can crawl under, over, and into this car to your heart's content.

Dave Nelson