Regarding new Broadway H2A hoppers

[Snark45]

Anyone know which of the many roadnames offered are foobies? PRR and N&W are obviously OK, but what about the others?

Many Thanks,
Harry

[up1950s]

This UP is a foobie .

[mu26aeh]

I'm not 100% sure but I doubt the CSX cars with NYC reporting marks are real ones.  I haven't seen any blue CSX hoppers 

[bbussey]

The Pennsy scheme is too late for me.  I'll wait for someone to break up one of the N&W sets and snag a car then.  I'll know which of the schemes, 17" or 24", is more appropriate for 1956 by the time they are released.

[skm]

According to Teichmoellers book on Pennsy hoppers,

The PRR lease H2a from 1957-1967
The B&O leased some H3s (visually similar/the same) from 1944-1948
The Wabash purchased 359 H2a in 1962
Evidence of discussions with the Illinois Central, but no pics of cars.

[SkipGear]

Pretty much, if there is only one 6 pack available, they are foobs from what I see.

[CodyO]

What about the cars themselfves any info on trucks, couplers and wheels?

[wcfn100]

Pretty much, if there is only one 6 pack available, they are foobs from what I see.

I think that's a reasonable assumption.

The only IC cars I can find in that series are 4-bays built in the late 60's.  And I'm pretty sure I'd know about the CNW cars if they were prototype.

Jason

[towl1996]

Why only 6 packs?    Will this hurt or help sales? Makes no sense to me.  Ugh

[SkipGear]

Why only 6 packs?    Will this hurt or help sales? Makes no sense to me.  Ugh

Considering that these are typically used in coal service and their intended mark N&W used them a lot, you would see a lot more than one or two in a train at a time. For N&W, 6 or more H2a's out of a 40+  car coal train would not be that unusual at all. For the other roads, a little less likely but being that I model coal trains, I'm not complaining at all. The more hoppers the better.

I wish there was something like this available when I started building my B&O fleet. Do you know how hard it is to build up a reasonable sized coal fleet buying 1 - 2 Mt cars or 2-3 Atlas cars per release? This makes it easy to have an instant coal train for a lot of people. Even though it may not be completely accurate to have a complete train of H2a's, it's better than having no coal cars at all.

Last year I started putting together an N&W coal train to pull behind a Y-3 for N-trak. Before the MT 8 car runner pack, I had gathered up 6 cars in a year of searching. Now if I want, I can instantly add 18 cars to the train (The hamburger logo is too new for steam).  Fortunately for Broadway and unfortunately for my wallet, I probably will.

[towl1996]

I understand what your saying, multiple road numbers is good, but I think packaging them as singles, doubles, or triples provides more options for people therefore possibly greater sales.

[SkipGear]

I understand what your saying, multiple road numbers is good, but I think packaging them as singles, doubles, or triples provides more options for people therefore possibly greater sales.

The only company to really do that in large numbers so far has been Bluford on their coal hoppers. Of the roads we have carried in our shop, they all sold as complete sets of all numbers available. I don't think I have had a single customer buy just a one or two pack. If they want them, they want all of them. Coal cars are like potato chips, you can't have just one. The Atlas offsets came in 2 singles + a 3 pack and the same was true, if anybody bought them they bought all. I actually ordered some extra singles and they hung around the shop forever because customers wouldn't buy them unless they could get all of them at once.

[towl1996]

I don't think I have had a single customer buy just a one or two pack.

I'm sorry, that makes no sense. I have no idea what goes on in the hobby shop in which you work, so I can't refute what your saying. But I know when Deluxe Innovations offered their PRR CK and SK boxcars in single and double packs, I bought them despite the fact that they were not all in one package. If there is no price break, I can't see what the difference would be. As a PRR modeler, I might like to have one or two N&W or B&O cars, but as they're packaged they're losing a sale. 

[SkipGear]

I'm sorry, that makes no sense. I have no idea what goes on in the hobby shop in which you work, so I can't refute what your saying. But I know when Deluxe Innovations offered their PRR CK and SK boxcars in single and double packs, I bought them despite the fact that they were not all in one package. If there is no price break, I can't see what the difference would be. As a PRR modeler, I might like to have one or two N&W or B&O cars, but as they're packaged they're losing a sale. 

It's simple...the average consumer is not us. The average consumer owns say a B&O loco. They want B&O cars to run behind it. We know that trains are rarely made up of all the same car or even same road but the guys with the money to buy this stuff don't care about that.

Besides, how many coal trains do you see with one oddball non-home road car in a train full of home road cars? You may see a block of cars being transfered but a single would be very rare indeed. For the most part, guys that are buying these cars, are buying them for a coal drag on the road that they model. If you just need a random single here or there for local, there are plenty of options from MT or Atlas that will fit the bill just fine. I don't know many people that are hyper worried about accuracy of non-home road cars. For most, maximum effort is spent on the road they model, other roads are just filler for the rest of the scene.

[Mark5]

Is there an announcement on these somewhere? I saw them on the BLI production schedule, but it this just another joke?