Model Railroading > CSX Coke Express hoppers

Has anyone ever kitbashed the CSX Coke Express hoppers? We have a train of those
that runs thru here every couple days, and I think it'd be neat to make a few of
them (like I need more projects to start on ;) I can't recall ever seeing any
articles in magazines...any tips? I imagine the Bowser 100T car would be the
best starting point?

I was actually just thinking about this a few days ago after looking through the Coke Express photos on Fallen Flags. The sides of the cars look like the Bowser 100 ton, but the hopper bays on the prototype are different - they are much shallower, for lack of a better term. The Bowser hopper bays hang down lower below the sides. I'm going to post a message on the Modern Freightcar List to see if anyone knows what hoppers were rebuilt to make these cars, and if there's a corresponding model. This might be a case where the cars were almost completely rebuilt on the old frames of another hopper (kind of like the Bethgons), so it might involve putting the hopper bays from one model on the Bowser model (which could make it diffifult to model the interior properly). Of course, you could definitely use two Bowser cars (stacked on top of each other) to do a decent stand-in model.

Definitely an interesting project.

Dave

An observation that I just noticed from taking another look at the Fallen Flags photos - I included this in my message to the MFCL:

There seem to be a couple side panel variations - this one has 5 narrow panels -
2 wider panels - 5 narrow panels (not counting the end panels):

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/csx/csxt295461amg.jpg

while this car seems to have panels of equal width, except for narrow panels where
the "O" and the first "S" are located:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/csx/csxt295610amg.jpg

I'd be very interested in seeing a photo of the interior of these cars if someone can find one. I would bet that they have horizontal cross bars just below the tops of the sides like a woodchip hopper - in the second photo, you can see sets of 4 bolts (bigger than rivets) near the top of four of the outside posts - counting from the left, on the 3rd and 5th post from each end. I'd bet money these indicate where the cross bars are mounted on the inside of the car.

Dave

I didn't notice the variation you mentioned, but I did notice some say
"new 12-90" (or some other date close to that), and some don't, but have RBLT in
the consolidated stencil. Some are also black and some more of a blueish black.
I'm not a real stickler for the hopper bay, if I could kitbash it and make it
"look" right, I'd probably be happy :) Microscale even has the COKE EXPRESS
lettering on one of their CSX freight car sets.

Also, the crossbracing, would that be a "transverse"? Alot of them have a small
sticker near the center of the car that says "new transverse 2-2004" (or some other
date). I believe that's the little sticker under the "A CSX Quality Car" logo on
CSXT 295610.

Here are two responses (below) that I got on the Modern Freightcar List from two very knowledgeable guys that have helped me a lot with these types of modeling projects. I wasn't aware that there are 4-bay coke cars also - I'm taking a look for photos in a couple databases.

Definitely an interesting project to tackle - I still personally want to figure out how to model the shallower hopper bays - I'll have to experiment with that when I get home in the spring.

Dave


From: Dan R:

Don't forget the 43xxxx series 4 bay hoppers they have in Coke service too, these should be evenly distributed in with the 3 bay "COKE EXPRESS" ones.

From: Scott C:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/csx/csxt295461amg.jpg

Built new by Bethlehem, 1990.


http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/csx/csxt295610amg.jpg

Built new by Trinity, around 1990.

Both series were built with the idea that the upper sides could be removed and the cars used in regular coal service if the coke traffic ended. Apparently that never happened.

Modeling the first series would involve making the Bowser Beth Triple taller, as you surmized. The Trinities are based on a later Greenville design and there's nothing available to match. The old McKean (now ConCor) 12-panel triple hopper is based on an earlier Greenville, but it has the narrow panels in the center.

drolsen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here are two responses (below) that I got on the
> Modern Freightcar List from two very knowledgeable
> guys that have helped me a lot with these types of
> modeling projects. I wasn't aware that there are
> 4-bay coke cars also - I'm taking a look for
> photos in a couple databases.

The 4 bay coke hoppers don't say "COKE EXPRESS" on them. I think they may be
old woodchip hoppers, as a few of them are still in Seaboard System paint
(and other cars in the 43xxxx series are in woodchip service).
There's also some brown 4 bay cars in the 434xxx series that are mixed in. Not
sure of the heritage of those. They're solid brown with just a quickie "CSXT
restencil on the reporting marks.

csxt4617 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The 4 bay coke hoppers don't say "COKE EXPRESS" on
> them. I think they may be old woodchip hoppers, as a
> few of them are still in Seaboard System paint
> (and other cars in the 43xxxx series are in
> woodchip service).

Right - that was my assumption too - I had always seen those former Seaboard cars listed as being woodchip cars also. That response I got from Dan was the first time I'd heard them refered to as coke cars (note that he didn't say in his message that they are lettered "COKE EXPRESS" - he was just saying they should be mixed in with the 3 bay cars). Here's an example of one in CSX paint:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/pictures/2637/CSX%20430568.JPG

csxt4617 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There's also some brown 4 bay cars in the 434xxx
> series that are mixed in. Not sure of the heritage of
> those. They're solid brown with just a quickie "CSXT
> restencil on the reporting marks.

I've always assumed that cars in this simplified scheme were ones that were ordered by Conrail (hence the brown body color), but delivered after the Conrail split, so they were lettered for CSXT. There are a number of boxcars in the same scheme, like this one:

http://www.trainweb.org/marcrailfan/csxt173500.jpg

Dave

I've always assumed that cars in this simplified scheme were ones that were ordered by Conrail (hence the brown body color), but delivered after the Conrail split, so they were lettered for CSXT. There are a number of boxcars in the same scheme, like this one


Actually these cars were ordered by Conrail for coke service but for some reason the cars were sold to CSX sometime in the mid 90's not sure how many Conrail had but I know they didn't last long.