Anyone recognise this brass hopper?

[sarge]

I'm looking for prototype and maker.

This is solidly built brass car, a model of a later 70-ton car of the vintage of, say, a Pennsy H39, though it isn't an H39. Late 50s on.

No rivets, not an NYC 959 pattern car either. Its really well made and straight, of pretty heavy gauge material thicknesses. I don't believe the NH lettering by the way.

Anyone recognise it? At least prototype is important so I can decide what to letter it if it fits in here.

[bob turner]

Scratchbuilt? I would guess Arvid Anderson, but I believe his kits were done with .010 brass. Lore zen may have offered hopper kits.

[sarge]

Jan did, but they were pretty awful and had white-metal hoppers. This is all brass. Its really nicely done and solid as a church. It's just crying for a refinish, but I would need to know the prototype so I could letter it properly.

[sarge]

The prototype issue is now solved after digging about through photos. One must put ones assumptions aside and start from scratch if there is really no framework for an answer, so I started with New Haven cars. Nope, nothin'. Not a surprise, really.

So, post-steam 70-tonners. Most pretty much follow an AAR/PS pattern, 13 ribs; H39 follows suit. This guy is a 15-rib car like the NYC 959 pattern car that they (and DRGW, for one) had. Ah, there is where an assumption bit me in the arse, for I went back and looked at them for a start after saying it ain't one of them. Well, it is.

That then tells me its scratchbuilt by someone who knew their way around brass. Of course that could be another assumption that pans out as incorrect, but I know of no-one who did that car commercially until Bob Weaver did his plastic one in the late '80s.

Now I know what to paint it after stripping it off and fixing a few niggles like the one missing corner stirrup and strap.

Ah, that lesson I never seem to learn about thinking I know more than I do. Grin!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.

[sarge]

..........its scratchbuilt by someone who knew their way around brass.

That was my 1st assumption. Some of that shaping and forming is done quite well.

Well, it sure as hell would not have been mine though I'm leaning that way (either scratch by a really talented guy or a cottage custom builder) at the moment. It is "regular" enough to have been a commercial jigged assembly and stamped parts fabrication exercise.

"Some of the shaping and forming...?" Its all very very cleanly done so, if its a scratchbuild, the creator of the parts and assembly of the model is extremely good, better than I am.

I have a mill gon that showed up here a year or so ago that is built in the same style and to the same high standard. Once I strip this hopper I can get a better comparison, but both either are of a commercial venture I have no clue about, a custom builder from the sixties perhaps, or a truly talented and capable modeller. They "feel" like the same guy so-far.

I'm not about to dismiss these without some investigation and asking about, not without trying to learn something about them. They are really good.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

.

[sarge]

Yep.

Same sort of very straight, regular, and neat construction with heavier solid thicknesses of material. Again, the fine detail isn't really there, like rivets. In this case it looks like cut down Lobaugh mill-gon ends were used (the only rivets on the whole car. Grin!)












Again, I am currently not sure about the prototype, though it isn't as tall as the Lobaugh (PRR) mill gon. If not the same guy (which wouldn't surprise me, really) another talented and meticulous builder. If it is the same guy, maybe also an NYC car, so that's where I'm going to start if no-one recognises it.

[J. S. Bach]

Sarge,
Please post a photo of the underside. Thank you.

[healey36]

I know nothing about this stuff, but do you think that hopper is a prewar or postwar model?

[sarge]

The prototype is from the mid-50s on, so very much postwar. I'd not be surprised if this was a 70's or early 80s era build, though it could be as early as the mid-50s.

I've not forgotten the underside of the gon; absolutely plain with no brake detail. Just haven't had a chance to crack it out and shoot it.

[J. S. Bach]

Never mind on the photo, I was going to compare it to a brass scratch-built B&O 65' mill gon that I have. After dredging mine up out of the pile and comparing the as-built details' I do not believe that they are from the same builder. There is NO underframe, just a flat bottom and mine has fish-belly sides and simulated drop-ends. There is a penciled note on the underside of mine: "T. Arnold 6-39" T. Arnold was Thomas Arnold, a Baltimore model railroader.