Seeking Bachmann Historians!

[cmsluss]

I purchased an older 40 foot, four bay coal hopper with the Clinchfield road name from a hobby shop.

The only markings underneath the car are "Made In China".  The road number is CRR 47000

I've researched some of the older Bachmann tooling and found similar 70 ton hoppers, but none are Clinchfield.

Does anyone know if this is from an older Bachmman run?

Many thanks!

[Trainman203]

Years from now, the aging and few still-living historians and keepers of model railroading history 's archives will gather at a twilighted watering hole, reflect on the storied golden days of model railroading when it was a living hobby, sigh at the ending of those days signaled when bachmann discontinued the immortal Spectrum steam engines of  legend, observe a moment of silence, and then raise a glass in a long and fond toast to the glorious past.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[cmsluss]

Well lamented!

[jward]

DOes this car have talgo style trucks with horn hook couplers? If so, looking at the method the coupler is attatched to the truck, and the way the truck is attatched to the car body can help identify it.

[Terry Toenges]

I looked around on Google and didn't find any with 47000 number.

[Len]

The Clinchfield had two hoppers in the 47000 series, #47000 and #47599. You're model is probably this one done by IHC:



Pretty much all later hoppers were in the #5xxxx series.

Len

[cmsluss]

Thank you Terry for your research!  Train folks are good people!

Len... You nailed it!  I searched a lot of manufacturers,. but I didn't think about older IHC runs ( post AHM-Tempo-Rivarossi days).

Fascinating quirk about this hopper... It has weights listed for a 55 ton hopper instead of a 70 ton hopper!

Many, many thanks for solving this little riddle!

[Trainman203]

Old molds never die  ..... they just get moldy!  (Especially 5th time around or more.)

If the Bach Man doesn't mind, let's take a little trip down memory recalling fondly some of the companies who shared molds for plastic cars and buildings like siblings share clothes......

AHM, Rivarossi, Con-Cor, IHC, Model Power..... who am I missing?

You know who is missing, actually, is Revell.  They might still well be making plastic airplane kits today.  But their very early HO structure kits in particular were beautiful and well detailed even by today's higher standards, and I don't think anyone ever picked up their molds after they got out of the train business.   They'd sell well today. Mr. Bach Man, are you listening?

[cmsluss]

True!  Some of molds and designs seem to have been passed around from one company to another or they were "creatively acquired".   Fascinating how some of the designs were around for years, just in different boxes with different manufacturers.

You mentioned Revell... I have the 1/96 scale Saturn V that was popular during the Apollo days!

[Len]

Fascinating quirk about this hopper... It has weights listed for a 55 ton hopper instead of a 70 ton hopper!

That's accurate, and why there were only two of these. There were structural issues that limited the load capacity that were corrected in the #5xxxx series.

Len

[cmsluss]

Fascinating a 40 foot hopper was limited to 55 ton capacity!   I grew up in southwest Virginia seeing the N&W Clinch Valley district every day.  The Clinchfield, Interstate, L&N and Southern were nearby.  100 car coal drags were the primary rail traffic.  A car hauling less than capacity had to drive the decision makers around the bend, thinking of lost revenue!

[Len]

I seem to recall they they were sold off fairly quick, and converted to MOW use by the purchasing road.

Len

[Trainman203]

Sometimes a limited capacity figure was due to a different intended and more dense loading, with the intention being to remain within acceptable axle loading limitations. 

I've never seen it on hoppers, but certain TP gons had lines painted on the side indicating top-off loading heights for sand and gravel, neither of which was  anywhere close to the top of the car.  Iron ore cars were very short for the same reason, to keep a very dense load from exceeding per axle weight limitations. You still see very short tank cars even today for the same reason.

[cmsluss]

I was fortunate to find a Clinchfield rolling stock roster. It appears some "creative liberties" were imployed on this model!  The lettering for CRR 47000 is correct, but the roster shows the car at 33 feet with two bays, which would be more typical.  I know lettering is much less expensive to create than car molds, but it"s interesting someone took the time to get the lettering correct although it was applied to a "stock" 70 ton hopper mold!  And... choosing lettering from only one of the two prototypes that existed is a fascinating tidbit!

The little things that make this hobby great!

[jward]

When I was a kid in the 1970s, every time I bought a ready to run car, my dad would look up the number in the Equipment Register. More often than not, the number either didn't exist, or was used on a car that didn't remotely resemble the model. Manufacturers back in the day didn't do the research to get things reasonably close to correct like they do to-day. A great example of this were the myriad locomotives painted in Santa Fe warbonnet colours. Bachmann had GP40s and U36Bs painted this way in the 1970s. At that time, neither type of locomotive had ever graced the Santa Fe roster, and if they had they would have been in the blue and yellow freight colours. Another example was the 4 bay offset side hopper like the one shown in this thread. 3 bay cars of this design were very common, but the 4 bays were not. I've seen many models of them painted for Pennsylvania, which as far as I know never rostered an offset side car other than a truly bizarre 5 bay experimental car. Even to this day, Bachmann makes these cars in CSX. By the time CSX started painting freight cars in 1987, even the three bay cars were off the roster, and the 4 bays were but a distant memory.