2 Bay Hopper Clarification

The terms "War emergency" and "composite" mean pretty much the same thing as you describe it.   It might that Composite refers to older builds.    The War Emergency cars were built during WWII because there was a shortage of steel.   The government needed to use the steel to build tanks and ships and other weapons of war, including trucks and jeeps.   There was a War Production Board I think that controlled what materials could be used for what.    ON the other hand, the economy needed coal to fuel the factories to build the stuff, so they built hoppers with steel frames and wooden panels.    The idea was to replace the wood with steel after the emergency.   There are also War Emergency gondolas which Weaver provided a model of one version.

A Fish belly hopper refers to the way the side panels slope down from the ends of framing to about where the  top of the hoppers start.   The opposite is the common USRA (WWI design) modeled by Atlas O and previously Intermountain.   If you look at those cars on the Atlas site, you will notice the side panel is straight along the length of the car across the top of the hoppers.    I think the Fishbelly design is older and probably there were structural reasons for the design.

The Offset Side cars are similar in construction the others but the ribs especially are inside the car side panels rather than outside.   The ribs would be a different shape with a tapered tops and bottoms to mount the panels.     Again these cars have slightly greater volume than outside braced cars.    They were quite common on some RRs and not at all on others.   I think C&O  used a lot and PRR did not have any.

The Panel side car is most often a take off on the USRA car.    When these hoppers got well used the side panels rusted out but the rest of the car was good.   so the RRs rebuilt them probably more than once.    someone - rebuilder or RR - came up with the idea to replace the flat side panels with ones ballooned out the add volume capacity.  

Thank you very much, this helps a lot.

War emergency and Composite make the most sense, once I said the word composite outload it clicked in my brain, composite made of different stuff.  Fish belly seems to make sense as well, it’s the slope.

So with that being said, it seems to me you could call something a “War emergency, composite, fish belly hopper.”  But I guess that would be like calling it a tree, tree, elm. As in this case war emergency and composite mean basically the “same thing”

So based on the information you have shared, is this photo with annotations correct?

(These are photos of hoppers I own)

Or this the slope that makes it a fishbelly hopper?

Is this an image of a just 2 bay hopper?

(please ignore orange slope if fishbelly note is wrong)

Is there a special name for this style with this bend in on the top?

(please ignore orange slope if fishbelly note is wrong)

I think this is the offset hopper

Last one is what is the name for the tabs on this style of hopper

The term "fish belly" refers to the hopper frame not the slope sheets that run from the hoppers in the bottom to the ends.

Thank you! So in my photos the only Fishbelly hopper is the WM one.

@peter allen 072518 posted:

Thank you! So in my photos the only Fishbelly hopper is the WM one.

Correct!