If you are looking for already painted and lettered hoppers, you may be out of luck with local hobby shops or distributors like Walthers. Most manufactures now do batch runs, and once a P/L scheme is sold it may not be redone for a long time, if ever. To get Q cars you may have to paint and decal or go to a specially shop like Q Connection or 5th Ave Car Shops. The various Q runs have not been done for some time, so searching Ebay or going to swap meets is the way to go. I was at one Saturday and a fellow had a number of HO hoppers lettered for the Q. He was selling them $145 for sets of 8 with coal loads and hook horn couplers. Even had a set of yellow cars with Q lettering (I have no idea who made those).
If you are looking for prototype accurate cars, your search will be even more difficult. Steam Era Hoppers range from 30’ twins up to the 40’+ quads. You also have many variations of ribs or offset sides, and the ends can be flat, peaked, notched, or rounded. But few Q designs have come forth from manufactures.
Both the Accurail and Tichy are accurate twin bay hoppers for the USRA 55 ton design (the models have some minor differences) with rib sides and 30’ nominal length. Ken has already pointed out these models are too short for accurate Q two bay hoppers.
Athearn’s car is 33/34’ and not really accurate for anything, but has been offered in a lot of paint schemes, ribbed and offset. The offset car is close to a lot of twin bay hoppers. This car could be used for the following Q 34’ all steel ribbed hoppers: 192000-193199 built in 1936, 190000-191749 built in 1944, 188000-189999 build in 1949.
Athearn’s composite side (ie war emergency) hopper: might be able to use for the Q 194000-194999. But remember most composite hoppers were rebuilt with steel sides by the early 50’s.
Bowser has primarily produced Pennsylvania prototypes in the past, thought their offering is improving.
Stewarts are no more, Bowser bought up Stewart some time ago. Look on the Bowser website.
Mantua has a 32’ hopper which appears to be a model of a steel rebuilt of a composite hopper (ie post WWII).
Varney (later LifeLike) twin hopper was a good model of a USRA design, but too narrow. You may see a lot of these at swap meets.
Walthers twin is 36’ ribbed sided, similar to a Pullman Standard PS-3 twin. (yes the PS-3 was also offered as a triple, and far more were sold by PS).
Then there are the various copies of the Athearn twin hoppers done by various overseas manufactures.
The Proto 2000 (now Walthers) is a very accurate model of a War-emergency composite twin hopper.
To get accurate cars resin kits are one way to go.
Notice I have not said anything about triple or quads. I will let someone else do the research.
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2015 3:42 PM
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [CBQ] CB&Q Hopper Car Models
The big problem that I have encountered is availability of cars in CB&Q lettering and mineral red paint. Checking the Walters website today, nothing listed or in stock for the Proto2000 (now called WalthersProto), Stewart or Accurail hopper cars in my desired paint scheme. Same results for the Accurail website and the Bowser website. I could not find a website for Stewart. So, some good suggestions (I hadn't thought about Bowser, for example) but no manufacturer seems to have any currently available. Accurail does have C&S 55T 2 bay hoppers in stock, but for me that is only "close but no cigar". Perhaps some of you can tell us of current sources for these cars, other than the websites that I mentioned that proved fruitless.
And yes, I have thought about adding some more gondolas for this service. Still would like more hoppers, though. Maybe train shows (and eBay) are the only current source for such hopper models.
Scott Myers
On Tue, Mar 10, 2015 at 2:54 PM, Kenneth Martin kmartin537@surewest.net [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
The Q twin hoppers are 34' long, the Accurail USRA hoppers are 32' long.
The Accurail are right for the C&S but not for the Q.
How close is the Accurail 2500-series USRA 55-ton 2-bay hopper to cars that the CB&Q had? It has 7 ribs. I know Accurail offered them in the chinese red scheme; an eBay search might turn up some undecorated ones that you could do in mineral red.
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Posted by: "Douglas Harding" <doug.harding@iowacentralrr.org>
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