Elgin Joliet & Eastern offset side hoppers. As the 1960s drew to a close, Elgin Joliet & Eastern began receiving second hand hoppers from sister road Bessemer & Lake Erie (both lines were owned by U.S. Steel.) The EJ&E fleet of offset side hoppers would ultimately exceed 350 cars. The EJ&E formed an arc around the city of Chicago with a radius of about 35 miles from downtown. Therefore, every railroad entering the city crossed the EJ&E. While this led to a fair amount of interline transfer traffic for the line, EJ&E’s real bread and butter was serving parent U.S. Steel’s mammoth Gary Works.
Largely because of this customer, EJ&E routinely rostered over 10,000 freight cars and 100 locomotives. Not bad for a line just 231 miles long! These hoppers are equipped with ACI tags and early format consolidated stencils. This run will be available in 3 road numbers:

Features:

• 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