So have you ever watched the show Casing Classic Cars? The tag line is "it's all about the chase". Well this chase was 7 years, yes, 7. It all started in 2009 when Les Beckman sent me a photo of a PRR 2-bay hopper at the trolley museum in Maine. So you know what I am thinking, what is a trolley museum doing with a PRR hopper car. When I made some calls, I found out that the trolley museum was using the car for ballast work, but there was still a sister car in Boston at the MBTA. I was given some contact info and the quest started.

Fast forward several years later and phone call after phone call, then, I get a call in 2014 about the hopper car. I traveled to Boston look at the car, look at a site to load the car out and exchange some basic info with MBTA peps. Well peps get reassigned, Boston is slammed with a bad winter and the uphill battle continues. Finally, I reach the right guy, the hopper is determined obsolete, it is put up for bid and the rest is history.

Frank Tartaglia Railroad Services out of Syracuse, NY hauled the car with their usually precision from Boston to Ringoes this past Thursday. By the way it seemed like every person in the world was on the road during mid-day, it took me 6 hours and the truck 8 to make the trip.

The hopper, H31 built in 1942 as PRR 220838 is is great shape and will require little to restore.


Oh! you can't load it on this track.


Ah! how about this one, Hey! MBTA mixed freight.


Up she goes!


Ready for the trip.


Off she goes in Ringoes.


Whew! feeling more at home than in Bean town.

Always glad to see more PRR equipment preserved. Is your website back up and running? Would love to updates on your other equipment.

Ryan

Excellent! Good save on this one. So few twin hoppers left, glad this one gets a good home.

Howard P.

Scott -

Congrats! Can't wait to see the car in Pennsy paint and lettering!


Les

Congrats, Scott. This car has been awaiting a hero. So glad it is part of your fleet now.

Les, we need to update the 2 bay hopper list with some good news for a change! :-)

Rob

I love a happy ending! Terrific, Scott!

Congrats!

Where can one find the 2 bay hopper list? I'd be curious about any N&W hoppers. The only one I know of is at Greenfield Village I believe.

the best place it could have went.

Why, right here, at the best railfan site on the internet--at least I think so!

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=26269

Rob -

Done!


Les

Great to see this car saved, I've been going past it on the train on my daily commutes into North Station for the last couple years now. Hopefully the other historic cars from the same siding (the tank and the B&M milk car in particular) can find good homes in preservation too.

So inquiring minds would like to know who you shipped with?

Since I chased this car for 7 years, I felt I could not wait to get it restored and the after 4 month of work, here she is!


Circle Keystone on one side.


And Shadow Keystone on the other.

So here are some of the details in order of restoration:

12-14 wheel barrows full of dirt, tie butts, and OTM removed from the hopper bays.

Replaced 2' of missing train line, two new angle cocks and end of car hoses.

Replaced missing hand brake wheel and fabricated new brake rod.

Cleaned and painted the inside with 3 gallons of POR 15 and 2 gallons of topcoat.

Removed trucks and sent out to McHugh Locomotive & Crane for roller bearing conversion.

Welded up several holes and patches during August, drank many gallons of water!

Sandblasted and epoxy primed, 10 gallons of Dupont Corlar by Ameriblast of Bucks County, PA.

Applied 5 gallons of Dupont 2.1SG Imron topcoat.

Applied the vinyl lettering that was carefully designed to exacting PRR specs by Eric Levin.


Such a pretty blue.............very calming.


All the graffiti is gone! Oh Yeah! that's a guy under there blasting the center sill, Ameriblast does great work and the owner Joe is great to work with.

Excellent work, it looks great! I noticed that you have the discharge doors working also. A really nice reward for all of the work you put into it.

Alan

Great work, including the paint!