Rock Island -Route Of The Rockets 3-bay offset side hoppers. In the years following the Second World War, Rock Island finally emerged from a long reorganization and began buying new equipment. 500 70-ton offset side hoppers arrived in this paint scheme from American Car & Foundry in 1949. Rock Island was unusual in that it completely straddled the imaginary line running from St. Louis through Kansas City to Denver. This line divides railroads of the Northern Plaines such as Milwaukee Road, CB&Q, C&NW and others, and railroads of the Southern Plaines such as Frisco, M-K-T, MoPac and Santa Fe. While some roads in one of these regions had tendrils into the other region (such as Santa Fe ’s line to Chicago) the vast majority of their mileage remained on one side of the line. Rock Island was split more or less evenly over this border with extremeties linking Minneapolis and Sioux Falls to the north, Denver and Tucumcari to the west, Dallas and southern Louisianna to the south, and connections with the Eastern trunk lines in Memphis, St. Louis, Peoria, and Chicago. These cars will be available in 6 road numbers.

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
• Injection molded plastic sides, ends and hopper doors

Expected Release: Fall 2011