At those measurements, the car scales very well to published drawings of the EBT’s 2-bay hoppers that they built in the 1930s to handle ganister rock traffic. (Not surprising–Bachmann used these same drawings for their On30 version.) These cars were essentially the EBT’s 3-bay cars shortened to 2 bays by removing 6’ length of the center bay.
Jerry, what were the construction dates for the box car?
Later,
K
Anyone have any insight as to how the hoppers would be to extend into a 3 bay? Im pondering making 2 out of 3, as it were, by cutting one up, and adding the third bay to the middle of another one.
I suppose Ill have to get some in-hand to look at. And maybe a boxcar, too. Who has them cheapest?
Bruce,
What do you think of a small touch of solder to keep the cut lever chain from sliding around?
That they put the chain there at all is really cool. too bad they didn’t follow through…
I like the looks of the car. I might get a few to bash into 1:29. Should’t be too hard to do.
Anyone have the Bachmann part number for the 2-Bay EBT lettered hopper?
I’m trying to price them out, but the Bachmann website is down for a move.
JR
NEVER MIND: I found the number at RRS: 88997 Bachmann East Broad Top Hopper. Selling for about $83, but not in stock.
Kevin Strong said:Kevin, All:
Jerry, what were the construction dates for the box car? K
According to Westcott and Johnson in “The Pacific Coast Railway”, PCRy’s boxcars with even numbers from 1500 to 1518 (10 cars) were originally manufactured for the F&CC in 1900. I would guess that all this series of F&CC cars were manufactured at approximately the same time.
These cars went from the F&CC to the N-C-O in 1915, then to the PCRy in 1928. Many of them operated on the PCRy until abandonment in ~1942.
In the early 1940s, some of the PCRy boxcars went to the Navy to operate on the Oahu Railroad. I hope to have a couple of these cars lettered for the Naval Supply Depot-Pearl Harbor as tributes to our military.
Westscott & Johnson also report that 4 of the F&CC/N-C-O/PCRy series of cars still exist in California, mostly in use as stores or storage containers. That would make them well over 100 years old!
Happy RRing,
Jerry Bowers
Just got the hopper and flat car today. Overall, I’m quite pleased with both. The flat car has already been disassembled and is in the process of being back-dated and rebuilt to more closely resemble an EBT prototype.
The hopper’s dimensions are spot on relative to published drawings of the 1930s 2-bay hopper Bachmann used as its prototype. (Considering I know those were the particular plans they used, this doesn’t surprise me.) There are some curious quirks, though. None deal breakers by any stretch of the imagination, but just things that made me scratch my head.
The biggest one is the lack of detailing on the underside of the slope sheet. This strikes me as odd, considering that when Bachmann did the 1:22.5 three-bay hopper, they at least made an attempt to model this. in looking over the model, the underside just looks unfinished compared to the level of detail elsewhere on the model. Now, I doubt anyone would ever notice, but given Bachmann’s desire to be as complete as possible in terms of detail (for example–they modeled the nuts and washers on the backside of the stake pockets of the flat car!) it just strikes me as odd that they’d let that detailing slide.
The hopper door mechanisms are fantastic! My only comment here is that they put details there that weren’t on the prototype. The angles that are attached to the door have this funky loop thing on the end. On the prototype, the angle was always just a simple “L” bracket. They did it correctly on the On30 model, but evidently must have had some extra details lying about when they did this one.
The working ratchet and pawl on the brake staff are great! A little wood grain on the platform would be a nice touch. Again, it just looks unfinished relative to the rest of the car.
The brake rigging is far from correct. As much work as went into making the door latches operate, one would believe that a similar sense of accuracy would convey to the brake rigging. Evidently not.
Again, none of these really detract from the car, and only an EBT geek like myself would be able to pinpoint many of these discrepancies. I’m definitely planning on a few more for the railroad. Both the hopper and the flat are great models, but I’m hard-pressed to give the hopper an “A” just because it looks like they opted to rush things, and cut a few corners in the process.
One other quirky thing–the trucks are NOT interchangeable. I’m planning on putting the archbar trucks from the flat car under the hopper, but will need to drill out the hole to fit the hopper’s mounting post. (The EBT’s first 2-bay hoppers rode on archbar trucks.) The flat car will be retrofitted with Aristo/Delton trucks to match the rest of my flat car fleet. The Vulcan trucks from the hopper will find use.
Later,
K