Micro-Trains 3 Bay ACF Hopper... What era?

[sirenwerks]

Atlas does an early and late version in HO.  The least they could do is throw us N scalers a bone, and give us the early version.  I could use a whole lotta NP.

[eja]

OK ... lets turn the question around and ask how late did these cars regularly  appear in main line service ??

[wazzou]

OK ... lets turn the question around and ask how late did these cars regularly  appear in main line service ??

The earlier version or the newer car?

[kalbert]

Later designs can still be found in service, I believe the older designs were scrapped out as newer cars were produced due to reliability and structure problems addressed by newer designs.

[eja]

The earlier version or the newer car?

The newer version, thank you.

[nkalanaga]

There was an ad from IM in one of the N scale magazines many months ago showing new paint schemes on their 4650 as "coming", illustrated with a picture of the early version, but I haven't heard anything about a new model since.

As for the newer prototypes, I saw a BN car, still in the original early 70s paint, go through Prichard, WV on the NS last spring.  It looked a little ragged, but was still running.