New N hopper from... Walthers

[conrail98]

I see lots of em in NS ballast service.

Would they be useful for CR ballast/stone service too?

[SkipGear]

Okay the obvious question.  Why is there such a big spacing between the hopper chutes.  I can't imagine that the entire middle of the car is comprised of slope sheets, or is it?  If so, it seems like a waste of materials.  So what's the story?

It's not that bad. Adding another hopper door would add a lot of complexity in building the car for not that much more volume. Depending on the commodity loaded, it could put the car over the target capacity. I would think the slope of the sheets would be influenced by the material they were designated to carry. I have a friend who drives a dump bed semi and it often takes 50-60 degree of tilt before the load decides to leave the truck and that is with a teflon liner in the bed.

[asarge]

MSRP is reasonable too. Good job Walthers! These will be popular in these parts.

[ljudice]

re: CR...

I don't think so - Conrail had other hoppers for agregate service - in fact MTL has a model of one - the ortner cars.

In CR days you would sometimes see a couple of these headed somewhere north - on the NS interchange trains like NSSE, etc...

I don't think these are usually in ballast service though, since they would drop their contents in the wrong place with those doors.

[inkaneer]

Okay the obvious question.  Why is there such a big spacing between the hopper chutes.  I can't imagine that the entire middle of the car is comprised of slope sheets, or is it?  If so, it seems like a waste of materials.  So what's the story?

It's not that bad. Adding another hopper door would add a lot of complexity in building the car for not that much more volume. Depending on the commodity loaded, it could put the car over the target capacity. I would think the slope of the sheets would be influenced by the material they were designated to carry. I have a friend who drives a dump bed semi and it often takes 50-60 degree of tilt before the load decides to leave the truck and that is with a teflon liner in the bed.

That slope sheet as you have drawn rises pretty high on the car side and leaves a lot of unused space beneath it.  Seems to me the car could be made shorter by eliminating some of that wasted space without sacrificing capacity.  I'm tending to think the inner slope sheets are of a shallower angle than what you pictured.  I was not able to find a picture of the interior of one of these cars on the internet.

[GaryHinshaw]

Here are a few shots of the Walthers HO model:





So the slope sheets do indeed follow the lines sketched out in Tony's post, but these cars presumably carry dense enough lading that they still fill out their 100T capacity.

Overall the HO model is solid, but not spectacular, e.g. the end detail is pretty bulky for HO.  I expect the N model to be similar, but I'm still happy to see it announced!  It's a cool prototype.

-Gary

[conrail98]

re: CR...

I don't think so - Conrail had other hoppers for agregate service - in fact MTL has a model of one - the ortner cars.

In CR days you would sometimes see a couple of these headed somewhere north - on the NS interchange trains like NSSE, etc...

I don't think these are usually in ballast service though, since they would drop their contents in the wrong place with those doors.

I know about the MTL one's, unfortunately, most of them are sold-out so unless I'm stripping the paint off newer releases, I'll be out of luck with those. The quarry I'll have on my layout had the aggregate one's you referred to which was about 40% of the cars delivered, covered hoppers (probably another 40%), but also had other open-top hoppers it used, based on photos and videos from the time-frame I'm modeling,

Phil

[lock4244]

The announcement has disappeared from Wig-Wag's announcement page.

[Philip H]

The announcement has disappeared from Wig-Wag's announcement page.

Too much press over hear?

[ljudice]

Are you modelling "Whimpey (sic) Materials"?

I remember the CR operations at the 3M aggreates plant in Hillsborough Twp, NJ - lots of 2 bay covered hoppers and tons of ballast cars. I've got a project going here to convert Kato and Atlas 2 bays into CR ballast hoppers, btw.

re: CR...

I don't think so - Conrail had other hoppers for agregate service - in fact MTL has a model of one - the ortner cars.

In CR days you would sometimes see a couple of these headed somewhere north - on the NS interchange trains like NSSE, etc...

I don't think these are usually in ballast service though, since they would drop their contents in the wrong place with those doors.

I know about the MTL one's, unfortunately, most of them are sold-out so unless I'm stripping the paint off newer releases, I'll be out of luck with those. The quarry I'll have on my layout had the aggregate one's you referred to which was about 40% of the cars delivered, covered hoppers (probably another 40%), but also had other open-top hoppers it used, based on photos and videos from the time-frame I'm modeling,

Phil

[conrail98]

Are you modelling "Whimpey (sic) Materials"?

I remember the CR operations at the 3M aggreates plant in Hillsborough Twp, NJ - lots of 2 bay covered hoppers and tons of ballast cars. I've got a project going here to convert Kato and Atlas 2 bays into CR ballast hoppers, btw.

Yep, Whimpey's in Annville,

Phil

[Mark5]

Good info, I guess a couple of these in SOUTHERN might be in order.

[Ian MacMillan]

I know a couple of members are going to be excited that they can do these cars now!!!! ;D
Jon

Exactly! Woot, NHN CARS!

[Mark5]

Oddly still no info on WKW site, but Chuck also has the info up:



NEW date 7-74

Where'd the ACI go? 

[SirTainly]

Anyone know the dates for the scheme on the Graniterock car ? I'm assuming it's a fairly modern repaint of the old GWS/SP ones they had.