As we have mentioned before, artwork we present in our product announcements is usually a first draft. We then use the time while collecting pre-orders to refine and confirm the artwork. Most of the time, the changes are hardly noticeable such as getting numbers right in the dimensional data. This time, we had a couple of notable changes:
With the help of the Illinois Terminal Historical Society we learned that the “I” and “T” had red drop-shadows. We were also able to clean up the cursive “llinois” and “erminal” and get the shop dates correct. Production is now well underway on this run.

Features: 

? Friction bearing or roller bearing trucks as appropriate for each road name
? Fully molded air tank and valve with piping, slope sheet braces
? Body mounted brake hose detail
? Separate brake cylinder, rod and lever detail (a first on an N scale open hopper!)
? Body mounted magnetically operating couplers
? Coal load
?Diecast slope sheets and center sill
  and injection molded plastic sides, ends and hopper doors

All runs will be available in multiple road numbers (a single and one of each of the multi-packs gives you one of each road number available.)

Illinois Central was the principle hauler of coal from the massive Illinois Coal Basin. Coal made up 40% of Illinois Central’s gross tonnage and their“Central” location and high yield made this coal competitive in much of the country. Because of this, IC hoppers could be found nearly anywhere in the lower 48. This particular batch was built in IC’s huge Centralia Car Shops (not too far from the Bluford Shops!) in 1966. Despite being built 17 years after the C&O cars above, IC used friction bearing trucks on these cars. This roadname will be available in 12 road numbers

Reserve Before August 30,2010

For January 2011 Delivery