hoppers
Hoppers...
Hoppers are the most plentiful type of car on
Chessie.
You can run trains of nothing but hoppers and be prototypically
correct.
These "Unit" trains as they are called make up between 10 and 20% of
trains
on the East End. West Virginia coal mines were the primary source
of coal for major eastern cities in the 1970's and 80's. This
coal
got there by running over the East End. A typical Chessie coal
train
would have several different sized hoppers, each size being seen in
either
the predecessor or Chessie paint. Bowser makes the best 100 ton
hopper
and Stewert makes an excellent 70 ton hopper. Below are links to
pics of my hoppers.
Also, there are several pics of hoppers with the
plastic
"hopper topper" on them. These are very characteristic of
Chessie.
Only Chessie and Conrail had them that I know of. Conrails were
white,
so the yellow ones scream Chessie. These cars were used to
quickly
increase the number of covered hoppers that Chessie had during the fall
harvest.
Finally, there is a pic of a XXX "moonshine"
hopper.
These older hoppers were restricted to just their home rails. The
large XXX was painted to let the crews know not to interchange these
cars
with another railroad. Hoppers in the predecessor paint jobs and
Chessie paint could be seen with the XXX. Use a pic to do one
correctly.
They also had yellow ends.
Athearn
Hoppers: (5
pictures)
H-005, H-011, H-013, H-020, H-?
Atlas
Hoppers: (9
picture)
H-006, H-020, H-021, H-029
Bowser
Hoppers: (21
pictures)
H-043, H-047, H-048, H-048 B
Roundhouse
Hopper: (2
pictures)
H-023, H-038
Stewart
Hoppers: (13
pictures) H-025, H-052,
H-055,
H-071
Walthers
Hopper: (1
picture)
H-061
