July 8, Sacramento, California, NMRA National Model Train Show – North American Railcar Corporation is pleased to announce our next major tooling project, the 100 Ton, 4000 cu ft Canadian Rotary Gondola. This model is a highly accurate representation of the Canadian National car design originally developed in the early 1970’s.

Research and development for this project was complicated due to the unique development and manufacture of this car. Though the cars appear to be superficially identical, there were in fact seven different manufacturing variations. Canadian National developed the basic car design specifications, with the cars subsequently built by several manufacturers. Three different independent Canadian railcar builders produced these cars including Marine Industries of Quebec, Hawker Siddeley of Nova Scotia and National Steel Car of Ontario. Canadian National also built cars at the CN Transcona Shops in Manitoba in the early 1980’s.

These cars have been used extensively in Canada since the 1970’s. Well over 3000 cars were built, with many remaining in service today. Initially, they were used for coal transport, later Procor began to use them for sulphur transport. Although limited to a few original operators, these cars have gone on to serve a number of Class I railroads and independent companies. In addition to Canadian National, Canadian Pacific and CSX have acquired previously owned cars. And companies like Sultran and Herzog also operate these cars. While developed as a coal gondola, these cars have earned a reputation for rugged dependability and durability. Current uses beyond coal and sulphur transport include scrap metal service, maintenance of way (MOW) and environmental services.

The following is a brief overview of the development and use of these unique and innovative cars:

• In 1970 Canadian National introduced into service a new type of car for unit coal train service in Western Canada.  These cars were based on general design specifications developed by Canadian National for use by railcar manufacturers. Similar to bathtub gondolas, these cars featured horizontal side posts and horizontal non-terminating end ribs, an inside length of 52”-4”, and a capacity of 4000 cubic feet.  They were equipped with a rotary coupler at the ‘A’ end, which was usually denoted by a yellow panel at that end of the car.  This enabled the cars to be rotated upside down for unloading in a dumper whilst still coupled within a train. A small number of cars were fitted with rotary couplers at both ends and served as the last car in a train coupled next to the caboose.
• CN received 200 cars from Marine Industries Ltd. in 1970, 368 cars from Hawker Siddeley in 1974, another 300 cars from Marine Industries in 1982, and 440 cars from National Steel Car in 1983.  This last group of cars was acquired to move coal from southern British Columbia to Ontario for Ontario Hydro. All cars were decorated with the CN noodle logogram.
• In 1983 CN also built 648 cars at its own Transcona Shops to serve the new coal mines in north-eastern British Columbia.  These unit coal trains would operate from Tumbler Ridge to Prince Rupert over British Columbia Railway and CN tracks, and the new cars carried BCNE reporting marks with BCR and CN logograms.
• Procor Ltd. also operated a large fleet of these cars.  Between 1971 and 1975 some 1260 cars were purchased from Hawker Siddeley and Marine Industries Ltd.  These cars were employed in unit coal and sulphur service in western Canada, and could be seen on CN, CP and the British Columbia Railway.  Procor cars carried UNPX reporting marks and initially carried the company’s “Flying P” logogram on placards welded to the sides.  Towards the end of production in 1975, Procor introduced their new wordmark logogram which is used to this day.
• In 1986 Sultran Ltd. purchased a fleet of 360 cars from Hawker Siddeley for unit sulphur service.  These cars were decorated in Sultran’s unique orange stencil scheme.

As with any freight car design produced by several builders, there are several variations in design.  These include the number of side posts, the number of end ribs with or without gussets, bolster details, and arrangement of the underside brake equipment. Examples of some of the variations are illustrated in the pictures below:

In keeping with North American Railcar’s commitment to Accuracy and Detail in Scale, five major variations of this car will be produced in both HO & N Scale. The 2 remaining variants have only been used by Canadian National and will be released in the future.

Hundreds of hours of research time and field examination of the prototype have gone into the development of this car. In addition to North American Railcar staff, Tim Horton and Darrell  Sawyer also contributed  significant information and resources. All schemes have been thoroughly researched and are accurate for each time period and road number, having been visually verified either in the field or through examination of prototype photographs.

The models will be offered in a large variety of schemes representing many of the different owners of the cars from the introduction in the 1970’s to present day. Newer schemes will be produced when sufficient reservations are received, and may not be included in the initial release.

These schemes are:

• 11-10003005 - AMG Resources (AMGX)
  
• 11-10003006 - General American (GACX)
• 11-10006003 - Herzog (HZGX)
• 11-10006005 - East Carbon Development Company (ECXX)
• 11-10006009 - Helm Pacific Leasing (HPJX)
• 11-10007001 - National Steel Car built Canadian National cars

North American Railcar will produce these cars in the first run, if modeler demand is sufficient.

North American Railcar had test samples of the cars on display at the National Train Show and anticipates delivery of the first runs of these cars in March of 2012. Final pricing has not been set, but North American Railcar anticipates these cars will be competitively priced and in line with prior product releases.

In addition to the general background information provided here, North American Railcar will publish reference articles  through Pacific Western Rail Systems on the variations of this car and operations of them. This will provide the modeler with the  information on where. when and how any version of the car was, or is used. For example, if the modeler is interested in BC Rail, all information for building a prototypically accurate consist will be available for the following time periods:

• 1970’s 1984
• 1984 to 2004
• 2004 to Present

To complement the cars, North American Railcar is working with custom load builders to develop high quality sulphur, coal, tie and scrap loads specific to these cars. These loads will be sold separately and will be available exclusively through Pacific Western Rail Systems. These hand crafted, one of a kind loads will allow the modeler to select the load of their choice for their cars to achieve the ultimate in accuracy and detail in scale.

All North American Railcar Corporation products are available exclusively through Pacific Western Rail Systems, a full line online model railroading retailer specializing in HO & N Scale products. Pacific Western Rail Systems has corporate offices in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada and has warehouse operations in Canada and the United States. With representatives around the world, Pacific Western Rail Systems provides products and services to over 15,000 customers and features the industry’s first virtual private network for model railroaders with the PORTERS System.

In addition to test samples of the models, North American Railcar had product flyers available at the show. A copy of that flyer is shown below:

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JMP