This thread, having kindled my interest in period hoppers, encouraged me to haul out my copy of “The American Railroad Freight Car” by John White. On page 328 are drawings for a very similar car --- nearly identical proportions, but a hopper-bottom gondola rather than a pure hopper. The difference (for the uninitiated) is that the car has flat floors interrupted by the hopper bottom rather than having the slope of the hopper bottom continue to the car ends.
Hopper-bottom gons had the advantage of being usable to haul other goods besides coal or ore. The disadvantage was that after the dump, workers had to crawl into the car and shovel the remaining coal from the flat floors into the hopper. For the modeler the hopper bottom gon MIGHT be a little easier to model, and would provide space for hidden weights under the floor at each end.
My prime reason for mentioning this is that the drawings in White’s book --- reproduced from the Railroad gazette, April 17, 1896 --- show a lot more details than the Model Railroader drawings for Jack Work’s article, and would be helpful in building either car.
If anyone out there is unfamiliar with “The American Railroad Freight Car” I should tell you that this is an essential reference for period car scratch builders. It covers, “from the wood-car era to the coming of steel,” and is 656 large-format pages of terrific drawings, photographs, and text. It’s available new from Amazon,com at $43, used from $40. Alibris.com and Biblio.com also have used copies from $35. Not cheap, but consider that this isn’t much more than the price of one ready-to-run car from the likes of Walthers, and contains a lifetime’s worth of modeling reference information. There is also a companion, two-volume set called “The American Railroad Passenger Car” which I have found equally invaluable.
Bill S
I'm going to build it out of Basswood and dimensional lumber, does this sound like a wise choice?