# Aristo's 50 ton 2 bay hopper car



## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

Aristo's 50 ton 2 bay hopper car


Ted Doskaris


October 25, 2008


Aristo-Craft's new "2-bay offset-side hopper car" is also the 2008 club car being offered in Gulf Mobile & Ohio and Interstate road names. This car's scripting indicates "CAPY 100000" (50 tons).


The following illustrates example, Art-41880CB-3, GM&O club car in road number 32536.















Shown below is the Aristo 2008 GM&O 50 ton 2 bay hopper car packaging:












The car is now packaged in a clear plastic box having a telescopic lid.












This is a welcome change since the recent adoption of the clear plastic box having end flaps of the shown below example 40 ft box car box on the far right side of the picture.












As intended, the clear plastic box was meant for presenting an attractive display of product, but had been somewhat controversial as it is unfriendly to reuse for those of us that like to periodically put away rolling stock back in the box. The telescopic box lid helps in this regard.


As standard equipment, the car includes a simulated coal load made of plastic in the form of a panel that fits into the top of the car. (Comparatively, Aristo's 100 ton open hopper car does not include this feature, but a simulated coal load for it made of black painted Styrofoam can be purchased separately at extra cost.)
































Shown below is a closer view of the brake apparatus detail:






















One nice change from other similar era Aristo 40 foot type freight cars is the use of a brake wheel having a round periphery.












The opposite end of the car is shown below












Shown below is the bottom of the car's spring loaded doors for the 2 bay hoppers.


(Comparatively, Aristo's 100 ton 3 bay hopper car has 3 spring loaded doors.)












Unfortunately, the car comes with factory standard plastic wheels.












Shown below the trucks are removed in preparation for retrofitting Aristo's ART-29111B metal wheels.












Shown below is a close up view of what looks like a place to attach a housing for body mount type couplers












Unlike the more recent Aristo cars that had a nice factory applied blue / green colored paste type lubricant for the truck axle tips / journal boxes, this car was bone dry of any lube - another lost art since Aristo's recent factory move. 












I used Labelle's 134 powdered Teflon dry lubricant - squirting a small amount into each of the journal box bushings prior to installing the metal wheels.












With the metal wheels installed, the example car's weight measured 2.25 lbs.












Shown below is the car with its metal wheels on a test track












Below are pictures that serve to compare the new car with Aristo's 100 ton hopper and 70 ton covered hopper cars
































As shown, the Aristo 50 ton 2 bay hopper car is a good looking product.


It is fairly short and seems in keeping with what appears to be Aristo's business model of late that favors lighter weight, smaller locos and smaller size rolling stock (albeit still 1/29 scale) having plastic wheels that are easy to handle and with lower costs - perhaps with the intent of attracting new folks to the market requiring less costly, smaller layouts that are workable with tighter track curves.


That said, this car type is appealing to have in any size layout, and the expectation would be to acquire many of these cars to emulate a unit coal train. 


Since my core railroad of interest is Southern Pacific, it looks like it will be awhile for this to happen as the SP road name is not offered as of this writing, but then I have yet to determine if this particular car type is prototypical for SP, too, as my preference is to model what the prototype railroad actually had.


-Ted


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## GaryY (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Ted for another excellent and topical review along with your straightforward detailed comments. 
I have some of these on order in Canadian roadnames, being produced by Canada G Scale Trains, and it's good to see these cars close up and compared next to the 100 tonners. I'll also be changing to metal wheels and thanks for the Labelle lubricant tip. 
Gary


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2008)

Hi Ted,
I find myself amazingly attracted to these cars for some reason, they are small but maybe 50 would look great behind the bigboy at they coming up show...could you possably measure the lenght of the car only, no couplers also the hight from railhead to top of coal load, the big thing could you take a photo of the width of the kadee holes from side to side and lenght wise frt to back of kadee, im trying to see if the pad is for a large scale coupler or smaller version 
thanks Ted you da man
Nick...


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Christmas is coming. You could send me a few.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2008)

HE HE HE......


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## Great Western (Jan 2, 2008)

Greetings Ted,

Many thanks for the digest concerning the 2 bay coal hopper. As is to be expected from you it was concise and most informative.

I have been considering these cars and have yet to make a decision, hopefully before it is too late. The fly in the ointment currently is the drop in value of the £ against the $. Even so, at the current lower exchange rate, there is a considerable saving in the Club cars than other road names sourced over here. 


You mention the fact that there is, at present, no SP version. Don't forget that there is an undecorated DATA only version available (41800) and providing that the SP ran these cars you might be in business - with a little help from certain decal producers.


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## leonpete (Jan 4, 2008)

Ted, 
Thanks for the review of these fine looking 2-bay hopper cars. I am anxiously awaiting a limited run, four car set of these from RLD Hobbies in the Illinois Central -- Main Line of Mid America road name. 4 for $199.84 as advertised in the October issue of Garden Railways on page 17. I placed my order about a month ago and they should be out right around Christmas. What a great Christmas present that will be!!!


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## lathroum (Jan 2, 2008)

I run indoors... My layout is 24 x 12... I have 6.5' diam and 5' diam curves... I also have the smaller 4' diam switches...

I have a set of WM 3 bay 100 ton hoppers and they look LARGE on my layout...

I think these 2 Bays are just the ticket for me... Aristo gets and A+ on this one in my book...

And GREAT REVIEW also...

Philip


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2008)

Phil,i did not forget you i will respond to your question as soon as i get my email workin!!!!
Nick...


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

Posted By nick s. on 10/26/2008 12:46 AM
Hi Ted,
I find myself amazingly attracted to these cars for some reason, they are small but maybe 50 would look great behind the bigboy at they coming up show...could you possably measure the lenght of the car only, no couplers also the hight from railhead to top of coal load, the big thing could you take a photo of the width of the kadee holes from side to side and lenght wise frt to back of kadee, im trying to see if the pad is for a large scale coupler or smaller version 
thanks Ted you da man
Nick...




Hi Nick,

I have not forgotten you either.
I made the measurements this morning and took pictures.

The problem is I have yet to be able to get access the MLS photo storage site to make use of it, and it is not an issue of my password being incorrect as Greg had insisted to me the other day.

Anyway, I sent the picture files to Greg this morning thinking he would include them on his site so I could show them here. but he must be away somewhere or busy as I have not heard from him.
So I have manually loaded the pictures here and now.

Next week, from Monday through Wednesday, I will be away on a trip for the company I work so I won't be able to answer questions until Thursday.
I hope the following is what you need.

The overall body length (not including the couplers) measured 13 and 11/16 inches.




















The overall height of the car from the rail head to the top of the coal load measured 5 1/4 





















The apparent coupler pad meant for a body mount coupler housing measured 0.825 inch from the 2 holes to the 3 hole nearest the truck pivot post.











The apparent coupler pad meant for a body mount coupler housing measured 0.940 inch across the two holes.










-Ted


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Ut oh. 

Ted, that last photo is getting mighty close to "rivet counting." You better be careful, you're aproaching dangerous territory.


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Ted,

Nice pictures and write up! I was thinking about selling/swapping my WM 100-Ton hoppers for a bunch of these.


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

Thanks to everyone for the nice responses.


Tom, 

Maybe Nick will want a rivet count on the 50 ton hopper - after all, those rivets do show up well in the pictures!









-Ted


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2008)

Thank you Ted for taking the time to measure the cars .the reason was i needed to know wheather it would take a 830 or a 820 coupler cause aristo doesnt state that in there advertisment, 2nd im far from a rivit counter but i wanted to know Tom how long the cars are because our club has a show coming up and i have a certain amount of siding space to work with so i needed to know the length. IF i decide to give aristo another chance in buying some of there products i just hope this time they work rite out of the box ...... by the way does anyone know if these cars were pulled by the UP BigBoys...








Nick..


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2008)

Quote

"by the way does anyone know if these cars were pulled by the UP BigBoys...







"

Hello....any body out there? Hello..... what are you all a sleep or something? your going to make have to go look this up somewear arnt you..














dang it...he he he







i will not be ignored thank you ha ha ha....







good thing im not a sensative person...








Nick...


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Nick,

Google brought this back:

After testing and trials with the first Big Boy, the 4000s entered active service. They were used mainly during the peak fruit season from July through November, hauling heavy "red ball" produce trains over Sherman Hill. The "red balls" were high priority trains, made up entirely of Pacific Fruit Express refrigerator cars. Prior to the 4000s, it was common to see 2, 3 or even 4 engines used as helpers over the Hill. With one Big Boy on the point, Union Pacific realised significant operational and maintenance savings by reducing the number of locomotives and crews needed per train. This also allowed for time savings by not havng to stop and cut helpers in and out.



But during the war years, I bet that coal was hauled by whatever was available.


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## Guest (Oct 28, 2008)

Thanks Mark...







Google why didnt i think of that







he he he 
Nick..


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks Ted for another great write up. I see where the cars should now be in stock as of today. I will be ordering a bunch of the undecs for my D&S RR. Later RJD


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## jmill24 (Jan 11, 2008)

Here is a good article with great pics on 2 bay 50 ton hopper cars. It is a pdf file so you can save it............Jim

http://www.cohs.org/supplemental/200708/august_07_sup.pdf


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## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

It's interesting how those C&O cars mostly have end bulkheads sticking up and higher than the sides of the cars.
It looks like some of the cars had this added on whilst others were built with a taller bulkhead. There are shown a few cars that don't have the taller end bulkheads - these being more like Aristo's model.


-Ted


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## W3NZL (Jan 2, 2008)

I just got a dozen of these in the other day, its a pretty nice car all around, they come with plastic wheels of course, 
and the coal load they supply with them is pretty hoaky, but the car itself is OK... I've already torn 1 apart, lowered 
it about an 1/8 of an inch, lenghtened the W/B a quarter inch, installed a set of 820 Kadees, (mounts R supplied for 
the 830s) some cut levers, an a set of 33" JayBee wheels, an added an additional 8 oz of weight... Makes for a pretty
nice hopper, now to do something about that load... Here's a good place for an aftermarket supplier to move in, the 
load this thing comes with, just isn't up to par with the rest of it...
Paul R...


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Would have been nice if they had made the offset end car. Later RJD


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