BN inherited 2-bay hoppers

[nkalanaga]

The BN inherited several thousand 2-bay hoppers from the GN, NP, and especially CB&Q.  These were assigned BN numbers, but I have never seen a picture of one in BN paint, and can't find any pictures online.  Does anyone know if any of these were repainted, or were they scrapped as they came up for repainting?  Many lasted into the early 80s in sugar beet and other assigned services, but I doubt that they were in general service more than a few years after the merger.

From the Friends of the BN Ry site:

BN 502100-592599 (ex GN offset side)
BN 502700-503399 (ex NP offset side)
BN 503500-507479 (ex CB&Q ribbed side)
BN 508000-508999 (ex CB&Q War Emergency)

The War Emergency cars were a common sight in Pasco, hauling sugar beets, until the floor fell out of one between Yakima and Pasco, causing a very messy derailment on the old NP mainline.  They disappeared quickly after that.  They were also noticeable for the broken boards in the sides, with the holes plugged with plywood, sheet metal, cardboard, wads of straw, or anything else handy.  If the hole was small enough that the beets couldn't fall out, it usually wasn't fixed at all.

The steel cars were still in service in 1978, when we moved, just getting rustier every year.

[wcfn100]

Looking at the ORER, these cars were still in original reporting marks at least until the 80's.

Jason

[Point353]

The BN inherited several thousand 2-bay hoppers from the GN, NP, and especially CB&Q.  These were assigned BN numbers, but I have never seen a picture of one in BN paint, and can't find any pictures online.  Does anyone know if any of these were repainted, or were they scrapped as they came up for repainting?  Many lasted into the early 80s in sugar beet and other assigned services, but I doubt that they were in general service more than a few years after the merger.

From the Friends of the BN Ry site:

BN 502100-592599 (ex GN offset side)
BN 502700-503399 (ex NP offset side)
BN 503500-507479 (ex CB&Q ribbed side)
BN 508000-508999 (ex CB&Q War Emergency)

The steel cars were still in service in 1978, when we moved, just getting rustier every year.

Way back in the last century, Kadee/Micro-Trains produced two 2-bay open hopper models in BN paint.

55090 is BN 502341:



56010 is BN 508911:



Maybe you could contact Micro-Trains and see if they can tell you the source for the reference photos on which these cars were based.

[Missaberoad]

FWIW Those number series are black holes for photographs online, and there are lots of photos of the predecessor cars "whitelined" in the late 1970s.
My educated guess would be none ever made it into BN paint...

[learmoia]

FWIW Those number series are black holes for photographs online, and there are lots of photos of the predecessor cars "whitelined" in the late 1970s.
My educated guess would be none ever made it into BN paint...

You never know.. stranger things have happened..

[Mark5]

It would be interesting if there was a prototype for those Kadee Microtrains green hoppers. All of the BN hopper photos that I have seen are black with white lettering (except for this cool aluminum 1990s thing: https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8170/8055780930_b8e6ac5462_b.jpg).

If I grew up out west I'd probably be modeling BN. 

Mark

[Spikre]

 
   I had never seen so many Composite hoppers until ending up in
   Nebraska during 69/70 time frame.
    most sat until the Beet Harvest,then were used until that was
   finished.
    these were the War Emergency 2 bay cars,dont recall seeing
   any of the 3 bay cars,but there may have been some.
   this was also the time of the BN merger,but the cars stayed CB&Q
   back then.
      Sugar Beets were big back then,a real novelty to an eastern boy.
         Spikre
         

[sirenwerks]

Highly unlikely BN repainted any of the two bay cars since they were on their way out because of their limited capacity. I'd put money on the Kadee cars being foobs.

[nkalanaga]

Thank you, everybody.

And, like Spikre's Nebraska cars, the ones that showed up in southeast Washington seemed to be used exclusively for sugar beets.  Many were stenciled "BEET LOADING ONLY". 

The BN did use other cars for sugar beets in the 70s, including the various ballast hoppers, but they weren't exclusively beet cars.  Many were stenciled for beet loading during harvest, but then went back to general service.

As Mark said, I have never seen a BN hopper painted green, except for portions of aluminum cars.  The "conventional" 2, 3, and 4 bay cars were black, with white portions if they had rotary couplers, and the 70-ton ballast cars were freight car red.  Whether they ever repainted the GN's 100-ton ballast cars is another question I don't have the answer to, but they were new enough that I doubt any were repainted before the late 70s or early 80s.

On my railroad, there is one shipper that stills hauls coal in the 50-ton cars, due to loading track constraints.  So, there are a few dozen cars that won't be hauling beets, but for how long is anyone's guess.  It's always 1974 on the layout, so they'll be around awhile...