S Scale PRR H27

My “good enough” version

of a unique PRR Hopper Car.

The Mighty PRR only had ONE Offset hopper.

The H27 was it.

E8772 H27 Side small

E8773 H27 3 4 View small

There are no known in service photos of this hopper.

It is rare!

This car was made by the Late Richard Hall, who made literally thousands of model freight cars in his life, mostly in O Scale. Richard was an awesome person and excellent modeler that knew what to include to get the wanted effect but not get bogged down in the minutia. He wanted to “give you the taste” of the car as “good enough” without the heavy research in most cases. In short he got the cars done in record time and moved on to the next car. Some cars were also made in S Scale for his son John. I bought the car in the summer of 2010. It is made from multiple American Flyer offset hopper shells pieced together. Richard did all of the “heavy lifting” here.

I was “just going to give it a new paint job” since it was only decaled on 1 side when I got it. Of course it did not end up that way – it turned into a fun but substantial project. It had a coal load that had to be removed and strip paint off of the car which was quite a task. I went to great lengths to replace the cast in grab irons with wire, and spent a lot of time blending the seams with paint and putty while wet sanding in between coats. I will never do that again to an American Flyer Hopper! It has a coal load again since the inside is full of plastic angles holding the car together so all of that bracing needed to be covered up. Nonetheless, I added a brass channel as a center sill and tied it to the bolsters for an added reassurance the car will remain intact forever.

I am sure it is the only H27 representation in S Scale.

Under Construction

September 2010

DSCF5937 small DSCF5909 small