HO SCALE - Enterprise 2-Bay Covered Hopper

The Rapido Trains HO Scale Enterprise 2-Bay Covered Hopper is based on cars built beginning in 1948. Covered hoppers started to become a major car style just prior to WWII and are one of the dominant car types on railroads today. Early development of covered hoppers tended to center around two-bay cars, with few mass-produced cars built until the 1950s. During the early development of covered hoppers, New York Central built several different groups of "Enterprise" covered hoppers both for its own use and for its subsidiaries. The first groups were built immediately before World War II in 1939 and 1940. These cars proved quite successful, and in 1948 NYC built another group of 750 cars under Lot (the NYC's classification system) number 747-H. The post-war cars were slightly larger than their predecessors with a 2000 cubic foot capacity. They utilized Standard Railway Equipment steel roof panels which had four offset roof hatches on each side versus the five hatches per side on the pre-war cars. An unknown number of these cars were fitted with smaller, circular hatches for flour and sugar loading. Lot 747-H cars proved so successful that additional cars followed in Lots 783, 784 and 785. The later series differed in using diagonal panel roofs but were otherwise identical to the Lot 747 cars. Concurrently, Canadian National also built 150 cars to largely the same design. Delivered in 1948, the CN cars differed from the NYC's in the design of roof panels, side panels, hatch spacing and construction details. NYC's cars operated well into the Penn Central era and some were converted for company MOW service. The CN cars remained in service for many years, with some being later converted to ballast cars for maintenance of way use. The Rapido Trains cars are accurately scaled from prototype blueprints and field measurements and feature appropriate NYC or CN body style and fully detailed underbodies. The cars are accurately decorated and are available individually and in multiple-car packs with multiple roadnumbers. The Enterprise 2-Bay Covered Hoppers are part of the line of Rapido Trains HO Scale freight cars and containers.