WM had zero offset side hoppers.
WM had ONE quad. It was a corrosion test car, rated at 90 tons. It was fabricated with different alloys on each panel to see what would last the longest under bituminous coal. It was delivered from Bethlehem steel painted white, then later in oxide red, and finally in Chessie. The car number was 90000, and it included "Corrosion Test Car" lettering below the speedlettering.
http://www.train-worx.com/wm.htmI took the gazillions of Trix offset hoppers I had accumulated and painted them for the Laurel Valley...
I believe they're somewhat suitable for B&O hoppers, but I've never studied them to know how close they are.
The WM received its first batch of grey speedlettered 100 ton hoppers in 1963 for dedicated limestone service between Bittenger Quarry near Hanover and Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point mill. The new equipment was acquired after WM achieved trackage rights over the Penn Central to make the move from Fulton to Bayview, and thence to the PBR at North Point. Prior to this, the stone arrived in Port Covington in smaller cars, and were ferried across the harbor to Sparrows Point. After the Chessie "inclusion" (a euphemism for rape and pillage) in 1973, the trains moved over to the B&O, traveling the Howard Street Tunnel and Baltimore Belt Line, then over to Sparrows Pt. via Penn Mary and Dundalk. This remains one of the few scheduled trains on the east end of the old WM.
The WM cars continued in this service into late 1980's
The ubiquitous Atlas 90 ton hoppers in this paint scheme are reasonably good stand-ins, but a close comparison with the prototype photos reveals some discrepancies.
One interesting note: The interiors of these cars were painted oxide red. I made a simple mask with a sheet of styrene and some blocks to position the car, and shot them with a big can of primer. The train currently resides at the Maryland & Ohio, running regularly from the big quarry on the upper deck to the steel mill.
Lee
