DOES anyone know if ANY 3 rail manufactuer makes/made a rib sided wood chip car such as this one pictured...ANY road name okay
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I thought Weaver made a short style and MTH msy have made a larger one.
Weaver was a 2 bay hopper with an extension on the top. MTH model was a longer hopper with smooth sides. Lionel took their 4 bay hopper and added an extension on top. What you have pictured nobody has done that model yet......Paul
Paul. That's what I was afraid of. I really like the MTH model. I have seven of those cars for Montana Rail Link. I learned tonight that Montana Rail Link purchase them from Burlington Northern Burlington Northern Santa Fe. So they would have not had smooth sides either. My understanding is everything Great Northern had or Northern Pacific had had ribs sides. I'm thinking what I'm going to have to do if I want a rivet counting replica is to buy the smooth-sided car and buy plastic strips and put them on the sides of the car to make it a lot closer. Too bad. I actually took a picture standing beside an actual Great Northern woodchip hopper in Laurel Montana way back in the middle 1990s. I have the picture on my wall today still. I wish they made this car in O scale. I'm not normally a rivet counter. So what I may do is just settled for a smooth sides version. I've heard other people comment that they would like to have some great northern big sky blue woodchip cars. I'm very seriously considering asking and trying to get people together to get an order of about 100 cars. Made. I did talk to someone in the know in the hobby about special runs and he said MTH may be willing to do one with a minimum order of 60 to maybe 80 cars. I'm thinking I may be able to get lucky and get over a hundred cars. I want six of them at a minimum. Still, I wish they had the rib sided ones available. No such luck I'm thinking. I was hoping to hear something differently on here.
From the rr-fallenflags.org site:
Andrew
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falconservice posted:From the rr-fallenflags.org site:
Andrew
THANK YOU for sharing all the pictures Andrew. I'm think about trying to get a bunch of people together to order at least 100 total of these big sky blue hoppers. I MAY POSSIBLY contract through a dealer to get a custom run of MTH premier wood chip hoppers in big sky blue---of course their tooling has smooth sides. I have a picture of myself standing by a real one that has ONLY straight top to bottom braces (vertical only) across the car. I could easily add the vertical braces after getting the cars. I would want a minimum of 6.
Lionel has never produced a high-sided, ribbed gondola like this.
Many railroads had similar high-sided, ribbed gondolas.
Andrew
These cars, with the ribs, would be a real challenge to decorate by either decals or pad printing. Note the BSB goat logo paint is applied over (and on) the ribs, and the letter spacing is variable to make them fit between ribs. Adding the rib detail to an already decorated car is a non-starter for me... If the MTH smooth side chip cars were done in GN blue or BN green I would probably get one or two.
Milwaukee Road had these type of wood chip gondola cars.
Can somebody find clear photos of the real ones.
Andrew
