Intermountain C&EI ACF 2-bay covered hopper

[madonnasuffolk30]

Intermountain has recently announced a new run of their ACF 2-bay covered hoppers. Included in the run are cars lettered for the C&EI built in 1974. I did a quick look and compared it to Eric’s “History of the Center flow eBook” and it appears Intermountain selected a C&EI number series for the ACF 2971 cuft covered hopper where their model is an ACF 2980 cuft. There are various differences – the 2971 is 4 inches lower and 3 feet longer, they have different number of running board supports – 10 or 7 for the 2971 vs 6 for the 2980, and there is a 3+ foot difference in the spacing of the center two roof hatches – in additional to the outlet gate issue.

I had high hopes until I compared the diagrams and noticed the major differences in prototype. The MP did have 2980 cuft covered hoppers which Intermountain produced in the past. I plan to contact Intermountain and see if they’ll produce an accurate MP version of the cars.

Nate

[Joseph Berry]

Nate,

Thanks for the good information. I will look forward to what you hear back from Intermountain.
They have produced some very nice models. I have a few of their 4650 3 bays for other roads/private names.

Hopefully they will do these 2 bays with good MP numbers.

Gary H.

[clemmie_doris12]

The biggest problem with these cars is the outlet gates. The model has some type of pneumatic outlet which very few, if any, of the prototypes ever did. Certainly none of the MP or subsidiary cars were equipped with this type of outlet. InterMountain needs to remedy this before any of these models are even close to accurate.

[peggyrothschild]

Not to mention being three feet off in length too. 🙄

[Ray Swanson]

I’ll be painting a couple of these Intermountain models in either MP 705500-705999 or 706800-706999 as delivered. These cars were delivered in what looks like a very light gray, almost white. Is there a good starting point for that color? Maybe match the paint on an existing model?

[madonnasuffolk30]

Tru-color Mopac covered hopper gray is matched from a drift card and would be my recommendation.

Nate

@[email protected] wrote:

I’ll be painting a couple of these Intermountain models in either MP 705500-705999 or 706800-706999 as delivered. These cars were delivered in what looks like a very light gray, almost white. Is there a good starting point for that color? Maybe match the paint on an existing model?

[Ray Swanson]

Thank you, Nate.

[elsaanderson820]

How accurate are the Accurail 2-bay ACF cars for MP/C&EI?
I suspect not very.

I did inform them there is a typo in the tar weight, one digit too many!

[madonnasuffolk30]

I haven’t seen a MP version of the Accurail 2-bay ACF to see which road numbers they selected, however without an upper rib stiffener, the model would appears to represent an ACF 2970 of which the Mopac only had 100 – T&P 706000-706099 later MP 706000-706099. No C&EI cars. The C&EI cars were ACF 2971 cuft which which were over 3 feet longer than a 2970. I haven’t seen a post about accuracy/review of the car. Athearn also produces the ACF 2970 and just recently announced a new run of the Mopac cars – I think 5 total cars.

Nate

[Ray Swanson]

Here are the undecorated Intermountain cars I assembled, painted and lettered for MP. I don’t know whose trucks I used; I tossed out the Intermountain trucks that came with the kits. Their old equalizing truck wasn’t bad, but the once piece truck that replaced it is awful.

I’m not a fan of Tru-Color paint having had some bad experiences painting other models, so I used a ScaleTrains Airslide hopper as a reference to mix the color using Model Master enamels since it was matched to the correct color (I learned that here in another thread). I used Microscale MC-4272 decals to letter the cars. Solvaset got a few of the labels so I’ll have to get another set to fill in and replace the missing and distorted decals:

https://pbase.com/mecrharris/image/171736882

https://pbase.com/mecrharris/image/171736883

As far as I can tell, this series of cars is a decent match for the Intermountain model. I have loads of the Athearn cars which should be a minority relative to these cars, so as I find more of these undecorated kits for cheap I’ll probably build some more.

I could really use one of these cars, but I don’t know enough about the prototype to know what to start with:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=183804

[madonnasuffolk30]

Ryan,

The cars turned out nice. What did you use for the outlet gates? I don’t believe that’s stock.

The link showing 706185 would be a PS 1969-built 3010 cuft covered hopper. Car series 706100-706299. Just a few roads rostered the car so there isn’t a high likelihood of one being produced, but there is a manufacturer who has been on a PS kick that might be up their alley.

Nate

[Ray Swanson]

Nate, those are outlet gates from an undecorated Atlas ACF 4650. It comes with gravity and gravity-pneumatic outlet gates. I used some of the extra gravity-pneumatic outlet gates on some PS 3148 conversions.

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