I own an Atlas 2-bay Fish Belly hopper. I just purchased an MTH 2-bay Fish belly hopper online. I was wondering if they were made by from the same tooling, and if a load that fit into one would fit into the other. Anyone know?
If not, can anyone take the interior measurements of an MTH 2-bay fish belly hopper (length and width, in millimeters if possible) and post them here?
Thanks.
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You would think A scale model, of the same car, from different makers, would be identical 
probably not ;(
True. I am building some loads and they drop in perfectly into the Atlas cars. I was hoping to have confirmation that they are essentially the same car (meaning, Atlas used MTH's old tooling or vice versa) which would mean the loads could do double duty.
Interior dimensions of my MTH fishbellies are 193mm long x 58mm wide.
Atlas fish belly hoppers were (at least initially) made of die-cast while the MTH version is made of plastic. Although I really liked the Atlas version I stopped buying them due to their weight.
Ben, I did the same as Phil and actually sold the last of my Atlas die cast cars this week. They are beautiful cars, but with 4% grades on a small layout, they were a drag. 
I purchased a bunch of MTH and Lionel plastic cars that look almost as good, so the Atlas cars were expendable. If I hadn't shipped them off yesterday, I would have opened the box again and given you measurements.
I believe Atlas did a couple of different runs of this car. First models were all die-cast. Later issues were die-cast frame and lower section, while the upper hopper was plastic.
@Mike CT posted:I believe Atlas did a couple of different runs of this car. First models were all die-cast. Later issues were die-cast frame and lower section, while the upper hopper was plastic.
The Atlas plastic ones are USRA 2-bays. The Atlas fishbellies are all diecast.
Wonderful. Thank you all for your help... and the dimensions from "Bob."
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