Product Description
These 2-Bay War Emergency Composite Hopper cars were built during the Second World War with wood siding and slope sheets at the direction of the War Production Board in hopes of saving as much steel as possible for the war effort. This was especially the case with hoppers that were usually built with copper-bearing steel to resist corrosion. The car sides were built with the Pratt truss design using a combination of vertical and diagonal ribs.
These ready-to-run N scale cars feature: die cast slope sheet-hopper bay-center sill assembly; injection molded plastic sides, ends, and hopper doors; fully molded brake tank, valve and air lines; body mounted brake hose detail; removeable load; body mounted magnetically operating knuckle couplers; close coupling; and metal wheels.
Baltimore & Ohio received this group of 1,025 hoppers from Bethlehem Steel in 1943 and 1944. Beginning in 1946 they received this paint scheme with the “Linking 13 Great States With The Nation” logo. B&O’s dense network in West Virginia guaranteed they would be a major coal hauler, second only to PRR in tons of coal moved.
