For this weeks freight car Friday I have a couple of hopper cars from Walthers.

They are models of Trinity Industries’ Power-Flo pressure differential covered hoppers. The cars are from 1994 and are models of the Trinity demo car, Walthers #932-5807 and a Grace Industries chemical car, Walthers #932-5803.

The cars are pretty straight forward. A long rectangular box makes up the core of the car and the rounded sides are added to complete the hopper portion of the car. When adding the rounded sides one does have to be careful with the glue. To much and it will show and ruin the looks of the car. The brake hardware is added to the “B” end. And then the pressure piping for loading / unloading is added to the bottom. And of course the roof walkways.

The only fussy part was adding the piping to the bottom. One set simply goes into holes on the bottom of each of the five hopper bins and there is a second pressure pipe the fits into slots in the cars side frame. Then the individual pipes are glued to the bottom of each bin (no holes or location marks) and the end is bent to match up to the other pipe. That was the one that was fussy.

Once together Kadee couplers were added as well as Intemountain metal wheel sets.

Like I said, nothing splashy or time consuming. In fact the two of them made for a nice relaxing evening.

That it for now, will see you again next week. Stay safe…