Photos of my PRR H30 Covered Hopper

[tom]

Recently I completed finishing my Bowser PRR H30 covered hopper car. Bowser did a very good job on these cars and Bowser has really upped their game with their recent releases.

I did make a couple of changes. First I thought that Bowser made the PRR reporting marks a little too thin so I applied some of mine right over the existing ones. To make mine appropriate for the Penn Central era I also applied some ACI decals (MG Decals) and added some new lube informations. I also replaced the wheels with Intermountain 0.088" tread wheels and added short shank Kadee couplers:



I weathered the car with water color pencils and by airbrushing to make the car fit in for my era:



Another photo showing the good job Bowser did on these cars:



Finally one more photo:



While there has been previous versions of this car released before these RTR cars (with a little work) allow one to model these cars easily.

[mrsocal]

Tom you have a great looking model there. I did notice in all of your pictures that there is a brake in the hinge rod. Other than that it is a great looking example of this 60's to early 70's hopper. I too have this build, a Rail Shops, Inc. version and it is a slow build.

[TBird1958]

Looks great! Nice build and subtle, effective weathering.

[buffalobill]

Very nice, not much work for one of your projects, but it really improves the cars appearance.
Bill

[Spikre]

Tom,
nice work,but its TOO Clean !!
a car painted in 62 that made it to the ACI Era would have
the lettering and herald running down the side.
its a good job for a pre-66 car,but too clean for a PC era car.
unless it was just shopped,most PC stuff was really ragged.
Spikre

[tom]

Jul 23, 2014 13:23:48 GMT -8 Spikre said:

Tom,
nice work,but its TOO Clean !!
a car painted in 62 that made it to the ACI Era would have
the lettering and herald running down the side.
its a good job for a pre-66 car,but too clean for a PC era car.
unless it was just shopped,most PC stuff was really ragged.
Spikre

Thanks everyone. While I agree that it could be more weathered not every car the Penn Central owned was ragged. Some were truelt rust buckets but many PRR cars looked OK into the PC era. While the Bowser car does have a 1962 repaint date I did not worry too much about that and just weathered it as many PRR cars looked in the early to mid 1970s...dirty but not crud.

[Spikre]

Tom,
maybe it was the NJ Chemical Coast,Newark Airport,or the Budwieser Brewery,
but PC stuff thru Waverly Yard was generally rather crusty unless New,or
recently shopped.
and watched the action there during lunch for almost 2 years from 1970 thru
mid 72.
PC at Greenville [Jersey City Floats} was the same.
PC on the NY&LB had the worlds rattiest E7s pulling a mix of OK looking to
very shabby passenger trains.
maybe it was the Bayhead Salt Air ?
even the CNJ trains looked better,maybe it was the Blue Paint ?
CNJ Green did look shabby,but it was only about 25% of the equipment in the
70s.
Spikre