The story of these 2-Bay Rebuilt War Emergency Hoppers begins in 1942 when the War Production Board directed car builders to substitute wood for steel wherever possible in car superstructures. The familiar 2-bay “war emergency” composite hopper was a result of this directive. Those cars had wooden side sheets and end slope sheets (although the middle slope sheets remained steel.) This saved a bit over two and a half tons of steel needed elsewhere for the war effort.

Unfortunately, the wood boards were considerably thicker than steel sheet which effectively lowered the cubic capacity of the car. While you could build ten composite hoppers with the steel of nine all-steel hoppers, the lower capacity of the composite cars meant you needed more composite cars to carry the same load.

During 1944, the directive was set aside and cars that were on order were delivered with the familiar diagonal bracing but with all steel construction. After the war, as composite cars came due for serious maintenance, the wood side and slope sheets were replaced with steel. A large majority of the composite cars were rebuilt in this manner sometime during the 1950s.

Wabash rebuilt their fleet of 400 composite hoppers sometime between 1956 and 1958. In addition to handling the rebuild work, Wabash’s Decatur Shops had also originally built the cars during the war. The fleet was included in the 1964 lease of the Wabash by Norfolk & Western and cars with this lettering could still be seen in service through the end of the decade.

Features:

• Fully assembled and ready to run
• Die cast slope sheet-hopper bay-center sill assembly
• Injection molded plastic sides, ends, and hopper doors
• Fully molded brake tank, valve and air lines
• Body mounted brake hose detail
• Load
• Body mounted magnetically operating knuckle couplers
• Close coupling
• Fox Valley Models metal wheels