Menards 275-9368 Santa Fe Warbonnet Smooth-Sided Hopper O SCALE NEW

Hoppers on a Roll: Center-Flow Hoppers from Menards

Railroads have freight cars for super-sized loads, special cars for liquids, and plain old boxcars for cargo in crates. But what do they use for granular cargo? Material that might range in size from grains of sand, to crops like wheat or corn, or industrial products such as fertilizer, soda ash, or even plastic pellets? This is where the center-flow hopper shines!

Today?s hoppers are an evolution of 19th Century open top coal cars. They had open tops for loading, high sides for storage capacity, and multiple hatches down below for rapid emptying.

The American Car & Foundry modified the concept a bit, rounding the sides outward for increased capacity, adding multiple topside hatches for speedy loading. The car also utilizes a single channel to route material to the discharge hatches.

THE MODELS
The cars have the familiar boxy shape of a hopper, but with smooth, gently curving sides. Up top is a finely detailed walkway running around four sides of the roof, with loading hatches running along the centerline. On the frame are four discharge hatches.

Each car has an add-on brake wheel, and the four corners of have ladders for worker safety when moving, loading and unloading the car.

The cars are 14-inches long (coupler-to-coupler) and the plastic trucks mount smooth-rolling metal wheels. The extended length coupler is the longer device used on Menards scale flatcars.

DECORATION
The long hoppers are a perfect canvass for colorful graphics on the new center-flow hoppers from Menards. You can add some of the most colorful liveries of railroading?s king of granular cargo to your fleet!