Intermountain is releasing Z scale Car

Here is the Intermountain Railway Company website direct link: irailway.qwestoffice.net/

Go to the orange "News" button and click on it. Then click on the July 11, 2010 News Link. Now just scroll 3/4 of the page down to see the Z-scale releases. I would imagine IM will eventually create a seperate Z Scale link.



John K.

I apologize for hijacking the thread. But, I am keeping in the 'theme'. Enclosed is an very well written explanation of IM's new hoppers, along with some history, and some modeling hints. Enclosed is an email from Bill Dixon from the Z-scale Yahoo group, in it's original form and entirety.

Please enjoy.

**** Beginning

A few notes on the just announced InterMountain Canadian Grain hoppers.

This car was the first HO scale model released by InterMountain in 1993.
It has remained their best seller with some paint schemes (Red Canada)
now numbering over 100 road numbers released.

A short history of the car.
The genesis of the car goes back to the late 1890's when the CPR
(Canadian Pacific Railway) signed the Crows Nest Agreement with the
Canadian Government. This exchanged a a subsidy for railway construction
for perpetual low grain transportation rates. The agreement lasted until
the early 1980s. Over time the low grain shipment rates paid for less
and less of the cost of actually transporting the grain. Because of this
the railways did not spend any money on new grain cars. In the late
1960s the grain fleet consisted of old 40' steel box cars and a large
number of tired 1920s (and earlier) 36' single sheathed Wood box cars.
As these tired old cars were being retired at an ever increasing rate a
grain car shortage was developing.

In the early 1970s the Canadian Federal Government stepped in and
started building new cylindrical covered grain hoppers. Over time the
Federal Government and two Provincial Governments ( Alberta and
Saskatchewan ) built close to 19,000 cars in several variations. The
cars were supposed to stay on Canadian rails but they ended up wandering
far and wide.

The InterMountain car represents the later version of the car. There
were several paint schemes that were only on the earlier version.
Although it would be nice if InterMountain made a new model for the
earlier car, given the small size of the detail differences I would not
be bothered if those interesting paint schemes were done on this car.

This car also came equipped with six round hatches for Potash (and other
products) transportation. If the grain car does well I would expect
InterMountain to release these cars as well. It only requires tooling
for a new roof and set of round hatches.

Some Detail Notes

The early cars were delivered with ACI labels. Even though the ACI
system died early the labels lasted a long time on these cars. An
interesting spotting feature in the 90's was an aluminum rectangle on
the car side where the label had been sanded off.

The cars were delivered with a consistent set of trough hatches painted
in the car colour scheme. Over time as these were damaged they were
replaced with whatever was on hand. So you could have several different
types of hatches in different colours on a car.

One feature seldom modeled is growing grain on the end platforms. Some
grain is always spilled when these cars are loaded and some lands on the
end platforms. With the dirt there and rain water this sprouts and
grows. An interesting detail you can add.

The cars tended to stay on their home rails. Thus CPR cars (CNWX, ALPX,
SKPX) were seldom mixed with CNR cars (CNWX, ALNX, SKNX) in trains. At
grain terminals however you can find string of both cars.

The Government has been selling the cars to the railways. To represent
this on the Red Canada cars (CNWX and CPWX), paint out the "WX" to leave
CN or CP.

Graffiti - These cars have nice big sides, Graffiti artists (vandals)
love all that space. Many cars are tagged. Some very artfully, some just
vandalized.

-

Images
The web site:
tracksidetreasure.blogspot.com/2010/04/canadas-cylindrical-grain-cars.html
has some interesting images.

Rail Model Journal had a book on covered hoppers some time ago that
covered these cars. I have forgotten the title. Perhaps someone out
there has a copy and can let us all know.

Lastly InterMountain has kindly supplied good images of HO scale cars so
the web page:

www.central-hobbies.com/products/intermountainz.html

has been updated with these better images. I have reworked the
images of CNR lettered cars to show the CPR lettering.

I am looking forward to these cars. A long string of Red Canada cars
behind a pair of CP Rail SD40-2s will look great.

Regards
Bill Dixon


**** End

John K.

I talked to Frank Angstead of IM today at the Dallas Train Show. He said that the final molds for the hoppers have been sent to China, and they plan to have sellable product within three to four months. Quote: We're going to the NCSZ in Denver, and we'll have them there, even if it costs us extra for express shipping.