Athearn 2970 ACF hoppers

[unittrain]

Just received my EL and WM athearn ACF 2-bay hoppers and the are excellent!! correct ride height body mount couplers!!! They are
certainly raising the bar  .

[GaryHinshaw]

I picked up one of these last week and I agree that it is an excellent car! 

My only nit is that, even with body mounts, the McHenry coupler sticks out enough to affect coupled car spacing. It's not as bad as the truck-mounted McHenrys on the PS-2's though, where the extra spacing was very obvious.

But again, the details are excellent.

[bobcat]

I picked up a couple locally and I think it is a nicer 2 bay than the similar MT and IM cars. I am looking forward to more of these down the line.

[ai5629]

I also think these are fantastic looking cars.  I purchased all three EL cars.  I hope they release them in all the road names they have in HO.  I really want the Conrail cars specifically.  On a side note about the Erie Lackawanna cars.  I did some research, and the three car numbers that Athearn chose for the EL cars were still wearing full EL paint into the mid 1990's.  In fact, EL 21366 and EL 21393 made it to the Conrail split in untouched EL paint (I don't have proof, but I suspect 21354 did too).  These EL cars should be on every EL, CR, NS and CSX modeler's layout due to their prototype longevity.  It would be nice if the western guys would get them also.  Thanks.