A Hopper Project That took 25 Years

Well, back in around 1995, I bought a series of hoppers from Bob Parri who was a gifted scratch builder of hopper and other open cars. This is one of several USRA hoppers that I purchased. I used the Covid time to undertake a big painting project of his cars. 

Here a six N&W twins of his. I had them for so long, I had to sandblast the oxide off, make some repairs from being in boxes, and then add trucks and couplers

I also had a number of triples, both his and also from Precision. They represented various classes of N&W cars. There were about 12 in all. 

You can see my references in the back of the car. I actually used mostly Komar rub-ons as I like them very much. 

Here is the completed fleet on the layout.

I pulled together this Lackawanna lettering for the USRA car as they had some in my time frame. It is a nice looking car. 

Here is a Komar triple

And a Komar War Emergency car.

Then we have the standard twins

More twins

 And still more twins. Glad to have this done finally. The cars would not typically have been found on my layout so probably have to sell them. Would like to have done that before all the work!