What do you think about the Des Plaines Hobbies 3 Bay ACF Hoppers?

1965-1972 is the time period of the early ACF Center Flow Covered Hoppers.

Andrew

.......and what is you're view on them?

Regards,

Neil

I didn't see them listed under O scale. Got a part number?

'O' scale, what's that? 

Good Day Neil,

At this point, I do not have much to say. I have not seen the hoppers except the drawings on the Internet. Do you have any pictures of these hoppers?

A long time ago...

In a layout room, far far away...

Scale Wars (queue epic musical score)

It was a time of craftsmanship.

Modelers built in 1/4" scale.

It was technically zero gauge, but everyone liked "O" instead.

New disciples were welcomed into the fold with O gauge toy trains.

Then came the dark times.

For space considerations, H.O/OO developed.

It grew in popularity as the "new cute" scale.

O Scale layouts were hunted down and dismantled.

Now the O scalers are few in number, all but wiped out by the H.O. forces.

But our numbers are growing.

Our petty "family disputes" regarding OW5 vs. Proto:48; 2-rail vs. 3-rail are behind us.

The H.O. Empire will be overthrown. Model trains you can actually see and craftsmanship will be restored to the hobby.

That's why people are moving to S scale!!!

Rusty

I'd have to dig up my Indiana Jones hat in order to locate my PRS/SSA/DPH covered hoppers, so here's a link to an image on the S Scale Sig website of an old Pacific Rail Shops ad, showing the hopper, along with two 50' boxcars.

http://sscale.org/images/TSSJ/v1-no2/PRSad1.jpg

Rusty

Good Day Rusty, 

The hopper looks striking. Did Frank Angstead at InterMountain have these produced?

I don't know the details, but there was a relationship with Intermountain.

Rusty

Exactly. Trains you can actually see still take up too much space. You can still see the trains in 3/16" scale. All kidding and cheesy Star Wars references aside, I've actually been surprised S scale hasn't taken a larger share of the market.

Good Day Matt, 

As I have said before, S Scale is the "Diamond in the Rough".  Now that we have command control and sound from Lionel and MTH in the near future.................S Scale will be the fastest growing scale for many years to come!

I am seriously considering moving to S Scale. How about you?

The link posted by Rusty Traque says the cars were produced by Intermountain, lower right corner. Athearn made them in HO; Atlas, Lionel, and MTH have made them in O ga.

The early Center Flow covered hopper cars were cylindrical, generally 3200 and 3500 cubic feet capacity, with either 70 ton or 100 ton trucks depending on a commodity's weight per cubic foot. Starting in 1965 the shape changed to a more rectangular design based on the angle of repose of dry commodities and how those commodities filled a car's compartments. 2970, and later, 2980 cubic foot cap'y cars were introduced for dense commodities like cement, and ultimately becoming as large as 5800 cu.ft. All Center Flow cars had bulkheads inside, they were part of the car's structure. The number of outlets indicates the number of compartments. ACF never described the cars as having "bays", always as 2, 3, or 4 compartment cars. Cars were equipped with 20" or 30" dia. hatches, or elongated or continuous hatches (usually for grain service). Outlets were gravity, gravity-pneumatic, pneumatic (plastic pellet service), & butterfly. ACF also made and leased pressure differential Center Flow cars.

I was employed in sales by the Shippers Car Line Div. of ACF from 1965 to 1997.

There's probably several reasons. (My opinions.)

First, there wasn't a "Williams Reproductions" in S to cover the "dry years" of the late 60's early 70's, resulting in many long time Flyer enthuisiasts clinging to a Flyer-only mentality.

Second, on the Scale side, the scalers held on to the "Scratchbuilders Scale" slogan for far too long, even after AM entered the market.  Some still do to this day.  I got royally reamed on the S scale Yahoo board when I brought up the Lionel's efforts to attract the scale side.  (Fortunatly, the thinking seems to have moderated over the past few months as more of the scalers became familiar with the U33C.)

Both of these attitudes tended to discourage new blood. 

Frankly, I don't care who becomes interested in S: Be it the guy who likes link couplered Gilbert Flyer to the super-duper-uber scale modeler.  Builder, collector, operator, pack-rat.., it makes no difference to me.  All are welcome in my eyes.  We can learn from each other.

Third, until recently, the major S manufacturers were all small companies.  Lionel only had a token presence, while AM, SHS and SSA have had nowhere near the resources of Lionel or MTH.

With all the growth and advancments I've observed in all of the other scales over the past 40 some-odd years, I'm sometimes amazed that S has been able to survive by staying behind the curve.

Rusty

Swafford, I forgot I had one of the Pacific Rail Shop kits. It was a nice car until it took a dive to the floor. Pictures below.

Matt, I thought you're stars wars bit was funny.

Rusty you are right in my opinion of how it is amazing S survived especially the Flyer versus scaler which I never understood.

Allrightythen...

I went into my "Temple of Doom" and liberated a couple of my PRS covered hoppers with out too many close calls...

The first one is a CASG S-Fest car from waaaay back:

The next one was the first of the NMRA's "Living Legend" series, when they used to offer S Scale cars:

Sorry, I don't remember the year these came out.  They tell me something's the first to go, but I can't remember what it is.

Rusty

Good Day Gentlemen, 

Thanks for posting the hopper pictures!

    "Not funny dude!"

Jerry

Frank.....there is a lot of history and information about "S" scale and "S" scale products/manufacturers/layouts/modelers etc. on the S SIG Website if you haven't seen it.  Here is a link to the history of Pacific Rail Shops on the SIG if I'm allowed to post this here.

http://sscale.org/426/volume-1-no-2-the-prs-story/

The "S" SIG site has an incredible amount of information about "S" scale and is a must read for anyone thinking about taking the plunge into "S" scale.  I think you would enjoy "S" as it allows just enough more modeling in a given space over "O" that it makes a difference. You can pretty much find whatever you want if you look (or ask) and with MTH and Lionel jumping in it will only get better.

Butch