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A look at the prototype for Walthers plastics hopper.

INSPIRED BY THE forthcoming Atlas 5,701cf and 5,800cf plastic hoppers, of which I have a couple of the first batch vehicles winging their way towards me from a shop in the USA, I thought I’d take a look at the real thing behind a slightly older plastics hopper model, the Walthers NSC 6,245cf 4-bay.

Like the new Atlas hoppers mentioned previously, the Walthers plastics cars have suddenly become of great interest to me as I intend to model a plastics unloading facility on my new layout, such as this example pictured below at Franklin Park, IL.

It would be nice if a greater selection of vehicles were available from the trade in R-T-R or even kit form, but with most being plain grey-painted cars it is understandable why models have not exactly been produced in vast quantities.

Built from 1997 onwards at National Steel Car’s plant in Hamilton, Ontario, these jumbo plastic pellet hoppers are massive, measuring 67ft over couplers and with a total loaded weight of 286,000 lbs, a bulk that is well captured by the Walthers’ model. In fact, the only thing letting the HO Scale model down is the rather crude specification, which will benefit greatly from the addition of wire grabs and etched walkways. Those looking to go that bit further might want to upgrade the brake detail within the end cages as well.

The Walthers hopper is pictured below, straight out of the box:

Helpfully a drawing of the 6,245cf hoppers appears is available from NSC, as shown below, and Walthers’ model can be seen to check out very well in comparison.

These vehicles carry the reporting marks of numerous leasing and chemicals companies. They actually aren’t as common as several other key types - although maybe I’m just visiting the wrong parts of the United States - but here is a cross section of the vehicles that I have captured on my last few trips.

CEFX 5451

DOWX 68274

DOWX 68312

FLOX 62125

GPLX 77077

MLLX 97287

NCIX 2013

NCLX 172

On the subject of National Steel Car, it is well worth checking out its new website. I’m not sure at which point the company upgraded from the pretty poor effort that it once had, which looked like it had been coded around the time that Al Gore was inventing the Internet, but it was shocking. Now it is awesome in its extreme over-the-topness! Someone had a good budget to play with…