MTH 20-97766 Shell 3 Bay Centerflow...some help?

This paint scheme and lettering did appear on a 4-bay ACF hopper produced in 1967.
This information came from my American Car and Foundry 1899 - 1999 book by Edward S. Kaminski.  MTH has placed the scheme on a 3 bay hopper...with discharge contraptions that would have never been used for the plastic pellets these cars probably hauled.

Weaver made this car in 2006...which is where MTH most likely got their idea.

I'm inclined to agree that the Weaver car is a better representation. I can't remember if MTH made a 4-bay. K-line not only had 3 and 4-bay, but had various hatch configurations as well, though the "chrome" Santa Fe's were a fantasy (but cool looking nonetheless).

The MTH 3-bay appears to be a grain configuration. A building I used to work at in Commerce, CA was right next to a Pillsbury plant and I think I saw 3-bay ACF grain hoppers from just about everywhere at one time or another. If I were smart (well so much for that) I'd drop by there and get the photos I never took when I worked next door.

These four bay cars were used to ship polypropylene pellets from the Woodbury NJ plant via CONRAIL and the Pavonia Yard from 1962 thru 1999. they were loaded into the four top hatches by pheumatic convey systems at a rate of about 20,000 lbs/hr and held about 160,000 pounds of product. They normally were unloaded from the bottom tubes with pull-push pnuematic conveying system using a single blower.

Does anyone have any real life pictures? 

Check out the pdf attached to my posting above.

The only "real picture" I found is the book on ACF 1899 - 1999 by Edward S. Kaminski.

I have not been able to find other photos on the internet.

Weaver made this car in 2006...which is where MTH most likely got their idea.

Maybe Weaver got the idea from the MTH Rail King Airslide hopper back in 2002. 

Lionel offered the 6-17155 with this paint scheme when they introduced their cylindrical hopper back in 2001.

Lionel also made the 6-6107 Shell covered hopper with a similar paint scheme off of the old post war tooling in the MPC era too.

Many manufacturers have produced models of Shell covered hoppers in multiple scales.  Maybe they were all inspired by a colorful prototype. 

I bet most of them have the Kaminski book in their libraries.