N&W hoper cars...question...

Did someone say N&W hoppers?

I would be interested. Been looking for "close enough" N&W hoppers for a little while now and the best I've been able to find for sale are used Atlas Fishbelly hoppers that turn up once in a blue moon.

I don't have any books or reference materials on N&W hoppers so I'll defer to the experts, but these non-peaked end hoppers could loosely be thought of as HP hoppers. In my quest to find prototype hoppers to judge models by, I've found a few pictures online of N&W hoppers that appear to not have peaked ends. It is not a one-to-one match but I would call it close enough. Some photos I've found: HP Photo, HPC Photo.

No peaked ends is a definite disappointment, but I would pick these up. I need 30s-40s era coal cars for my K3!

thx.. beth

I don't think you can get too many steam era N&W coal hoppers!

I would be interested in one of these.

Just from memory, without those peaked ends, they would NOT be N&W 2-bay coal hoppers.

Would those highly detailed MTH 3-bay coal hoppers be more correct for N&W?

I'm in! I'm with O-GuageCJ, I have some Atlas FB hoppers behind my Y3 right now. I did pick up the MTH sets but I can use more.

Dave

@Hot Water posted:

Just from memory, without those peaked ends, they would NOT be N&W 2-bay coal hoppers.

Would those highly detailed MTH 3-bay coal hoppers be more correct for N&W?

Well, not every N&W hopper had peaked ends: https://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=19737
But, the peaked end hoppers are synonymous with the N&W! Sometimes in the model world you have to take what you can get even though it is not quite right.

I thought I recently saw some pictures of MTH produced N&W hoppers with peaked ends.  Was I imaging that?  Thought it was 6-pack sets with 2 individual matching cars for separate sale?

Chuck

Id have to do some research, which i dont have tome for right now, but MTH did make offset side hoppers, some (closer to USRA) twin hoppers, and 2 different 3 bay hoppers.    The fishbelly's were later tooling, so a little better detailed than some of the earlier hopper cars.

Im doing some special runs just to "stay in the game", as far as whats going on these days.  Im not expecting them to be money makers, but hope fully ill break even.    The cars i really want to do, the tooling is not available for special projects at this time.  So im going with just a few things that are either different, or seem to be in demand.

Ive always felt that the business has to have some balance between selling  new old stock, and new new stock.   There are a number of other model train businesses that are really digging in on special runs...and more power to them.     Im happy with what im doing here..and dont want to over extend.

Thx for everyones imput.

I would be more than interested in at least a dozen, if they have the peaked ends...

No....Read what I said.....The drawback is that I CANNOT get them done with peaked ends.  Not with the MTH Fishbelly's

Beth, a couple of thoughts about this. I am not sure exactly what the prototype "peaked ends" look like; I would like to see a picture of one. But might it be possible to get them built as a simple addon piece for for the MTH cars, for those who must have the more correct look?

If someone has access to prototype N & W drawings it might be easy enough to create a cad file and 3d print the addon pieces? It's pretty amazing what can be done with a 3d printer these days.

Rod

@Rod Stewart posted:

Beth, a couple of thoughts about this. I am not sure exactly what the prototype "peaked ends" look like; I would like to see a picture of one. But might it be possible to get them built as a simple addon piece for for the MTH cars, for those who must have the more correct look?

If someone has access to prototype N & W drawings it might be easy enough to create a cad file and 3d print the addon pieces? It's pretty amazing what can be done with a 3d printer these days.

Rod

If this could somehow be accomplished, I would definitely be in for some.

Greg

Yes please.

So I did a bit of searching and found the following "peaked end" N&W hoppers:

The first one is a brass model I believe, originally posted by Gilly a couple of years back. The other two are one to one scale prototypes; one inside braced and the other an 8 panel outside braced. It appears that N&W had many different styles of coal hoppers on the roster.

Importantly, the peaked ends are usually part of the full end panel, with no horizontal brace or visible seam at the height of the sidewalls.

I also grabbed some coal facility and loading pics: Many grades of coal are being loaded in the first pic.

This pic is interesting. These appear to be 3 bay 70 ton hoppers, so they may be too new for the desired pre-1964 period prototype, I don't know. But the right end of the middle car shows a horizontal brace running across the end panel at the height of the sidewalls. So if we were to build addon peak pieces, there is a prototype with the cross braced ends.

This picture shows some of the variety of hoppers N&WE had. Most are peaked ends, but the row at the far left clearly shows quite a few with no peaks. The row at the far right shows inside braced hoppers with squared off side panels. Another variant.

I am sure that true N&W fans out there will be able to ID many of the above cars in terms of what years they were produced.

But I guess the question is this; if Beth does a custom run of MTH fishbelly's, would addon peaked end pieces (with visible horizontal cross braces) look close enough to prototype to appease the N&W purists?

Rod

For me, I would not be interested in spending money on anything other than a correct N&W hopper.   FWIW, this topic has been discussed numerous times on this forum:

                       https://ogrforum.com/...andampw-coal-hoppers

                       https://ogrforum.com/...eam-era-coal-hoppers

                       https://ogrforum.com/...w-coal-hopper-needed

                       https://ogrforum.com/...4#154730474190257964

Yes, there are always exceptions but if you are talking steam era N&W, the vast majority of the H2 and H9 class of hoppers had peaked ends.    Every time this subject comes up the idea of add-on peaked ends gets put out there, only to discover that the ends are in fact, built into the car body.

So I did not realize this subject was covered in so many earlier threads. Looks like it's been beaten to death. So be it.

Rod