Happy Hoppers & Good Gondolas

My favorite:

And a Lykens Valley kit that I built:

This B&O pig flat was classed as an O-58 gondola by the B&O as it has sides:

This was built and hand-lettered (by Tommy Arnold?) in July 1939. Around the same time, he also built a couple of O-60 65' mill gons but I do not have a photo of mine. The only change/upgrade that I did to them was to install Athearn insulated trucks for two-rail operation.

Well, I'm more of  Good Gondola Guyy than a Happy Hopper Guy.

Will posts photos of my favorite gondolas in a little while.

Ok, here we go. First, my very first gondola:

This one is a Lionel Postwar gondola that came in my first train set, the 1954 Lionel Greenball Express Train Set that included the 2065 Hudson, Lionel Lines tender, operating milk car and platform, remote control 027 track, green operating log dump car and bin, yellow stock car, the above red gondola and Tuscan red Lionel Lines illuminated caboose with round portals, among other things.

This was a very popular 027 freight train set with, IMO, great play value for a child. It was also very durable and reliable.

This red gondola is not my best gondola, but it's the one I treasure the most because of nostalgia and its sentimental value for me.

Gondolas are wonderful for children because you can oftentines put things in them and give them train rides. My children and grandchildren have also enjoyed them for that reason.

Here's mine. My first and only covered hopper from a few years back. And whadaya know, Arnold? The very same kind of NYC red gondola you have. Except mine remains full of plain Christmas M & Ms I've been trying to get rid of.

Another good one, Arnold!  I have lots of coal hoppers, but no gondolas.  I’ll post photos and a story at a later time!

@Yellowstone Special posted:

Here's mine. My first and only covered hopper from a few years back. And whadaya know, Arnold? The very same kind of NYC red gondola you have. Except mine remains full of plain Christmas M & Ms I've been trying to get rid of.

You must have a sweet tooth, Vern, like I do. My passion is M&M Peanuts. I'm known as the M&M Peanut Guy in my hiking group because I always bring them and hand them out on my hikes with that group. Arnold

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

You must have a sweet tooth, Vern, like I do. My passion is M&M Peanuts. I'm known as the M&M Peanut Guy in my hiking group because I always bring them and hand them out on my hikes with that group. Arnold

Awesome Arnold. I prefer the peanut ones, too. However, over the holidays we have a couple of visiting little ones who are allergic to anything peanut. So I use the plain ones. 😉

The same postwar gondola in different colors with different homemade loads:

Want action?

Here you go, check out this Postwar Lionel Erie animated cop and robber gondola (or is it the cop and hobo gondola?).

Stay tuned, there's more to come folks!

Another classic Postwar Lionel gondola, the beloved operating barrel loader car:

How about your favorite gondolas and Hoppers?

Let's go, let's see them!

Now it's time to see one of the best gondolas I have. This one is modern, with a load, and very well made with heft so it tends to be very stable when rolling down the line:

It's either a Lionel or MTH car. It has markings for the NY Central and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the  P & L E stands for Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Division of the NY Central.

When it comes to gons, the ones l haven't easily found, when l was actively looking, are drop-bottom gons.  I would have thought more three rail versions were made than l have discovered.  Please add to Arnold's thread by posting yours, and what you know about them.

Arnold, nice memorable thread!

That first red NYC gondola is my first as well. Lots of plastic soldiers rode the rails as well as in the green one.  I used to put plastic dinosaurs, and certainly some matchbook cars in those postwar days. Hoppers from that time were well run with loads of varied stuff like balled up aluminum foil, tinsel from Christmas tree, rolled up used up guitar strings, and sometimes pencil sharpener waste taken from school classroom and some old folded up oxidized newspaper cut to fit!
yeah I have fond postwar gons and hoppers memories!

Leroof, I'm sure when I was a little kid I put lots of little toys and other things in my Lionel Postwar red gondola, but what I most vividly remember, oddly enough, is my father putting packs of L&M cigarettes in the gondola. He also put L&M cigarettes in the log dump car and dumped them into the black bin using the remote control track.

I had a difficult decision to make this morning: which one of several recent threads to post the video below.

I chose this one because Don McErlean asked me to start this thread and I like its title, Happy Hoppers & Good Gondolas, which Don came up with:

This video is one of my favorites, and the MTH PS3 Long Island B6 steam switcher hauling gondolas and  oil tankers is one of my favorite locomotives.

When I first saw the title of this thread, this was the first thing that came to mind.

@ed h posted:

When I first saw the title of this thread, this was the first thing that came to mind.

Perfect.

Would love to see more photos and videos of hoppers. I only have a few.

My Lionel PostWar Alaska hopper with a load of good old Yukon gold:

A double Lionel PostWar NYC gond. Can you guess what the load is?

Well hello everyone.  Thanks to Arnold for starting this thread I wanted to do it but just didn't know how.  Its fun however and I can see lots of folks agree as they are posting and adding to the fun and our knowledge.

@ed h - I will admit, your Lionel "Happy Hopper" was what was foremost in my mind as I thought of the idea for this thread.  "Kiddie City" was a forerunner of "Toys R Us" but it eventually suffered the same fate.

Arnold thank you for your video's, Lionel hopper from '54, plus the cop and hobo car, barrel car, and others Thanks very much for starting us off

@PRRMP54- Al ore car and Southern "Big John" hopper were great! Had never seen anything like the B&O "Pig Iron" flat

@Yellowstone Special - LV covered hopper and a carload of M&M's how can you go wrong.

Here are some of mine, I will get some new pictures later today and post tomorrow.

The Marx Wabash gondola from his 7 inch line, about 1958.

The Marx scale gondola.  This was from Marx's attempt to put out scale trains to go with his 999 locomotive.  This line started before the war but only entered volume production in the 40's.  Interestingly it was "S" scale at 3/16" to the ft but O gauge to take advantage and run on all the prior tracks and switches.

A real oldie...a Fandor high sided gondola with some rigging for tall loads.  1914 - 1918.  Fandor (in Germany) became Dorfan (in the U.S.) when German imports were outlawed and not very popular in the post WW 1 era.  The same men immigrated to the US and restarted the business.   They arrived in 1923 and made trains until the Depression caught up with them and they ceased production in 1934.

Here is the same hopper as the Wabash but in a much more scarce brown C&O livery.  About the same time, middle to late 50's.

Now here is an unusual one...the Horby (UK) "covered boxcar" .  Is this a boxcar or a covered hopper.  It typically carried granular products like grain, sand, or salt in this case.  The opening door on the roof was how it was loaded or unloaded (shovels and people I expect).  From the 1950's until about 1962 .

Here is a more conventional bottom unload hopper from Hornby.  Postwar circa 1950's.

Well thanks to everyone and especially Arnold for helping me start this post.  Hope you had fun and please lets continue to put those "happy hoppers" and "goody gondolas" out where we can all see them.

OBTW, I agree with Arnold and others who said that the gondolas / hoppers were kids favorite because so many things can be "given a ride".  Lots of us remember Christmas candy running around under the tree and Soldiers riding to battle in a gondola (even if it was just a lot of times around in a circle).  I certainly gave my soldiers a ride...although in my case they were lead not plastic.

Best wishes to all

Don

@Mark Boyce posted:

Another good one, Arnold!  I have lots of coal hoppers, but no gondolas.  I’ll post photos and a story at a later time!

Mark, Don McErlean deserves full credit for this thread because it was his idea including the title. All I did was start this thread for him as stated in the OP. Arnold

@Lionelski posted:

A double Lionel PostWar NYC gond. Can you guess what the load is?

Im guessing the load is a bunch of these;

Penn-pacific, I enlarged Lionelski's photo and believe you are correct.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Now it's time to see one of the best gondolas I have. This one is modern, with a load, and very well made with heft so it tends to be very stable when rolling down the line:

It's either a Lionel or MTH car. It has markings for the NY Central and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the  P & L E stands for Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Division of the NY Central.

Looks to me like an MTH RailKing gondola. They're the only commonly available gondolas in 3RO that are that low-slung. I myself have a couple, both in Southern Ry. I also have five of Lionel's humongous (by comparison) 66' mill gondolas. You can actually sit a 'traditional'-size gon completely within one of those monsters.

---PCJ

Hello, well I promised I would be back tomorrow but as I was sitting down to read some of the posts, I realized that I had a gondola sitting right on my desk from some earlier investigations.  It is a Hornby, Type 20.  In 1954, Hornby announced that the M0 line of trains, Hornby's bottom or least expensive line since 1930 was being replaced by the Type 20.  The loco was handsome and the tender reflected the "Lion & Wheel" emblem of the nationalized lines.  It is sad to  note that interest in Gauge 0 was clearly declining by this point and this Type 20 was one of Hornby's last gasps into new trains in 0 gauge.  By the early 1960's almost everything had moved to double 0 .  But, here she is, the Hornby type 20 gondola, available from 1954 to 1966.  This was always a small line, this gondola is but 4" long and the couplers are simple hook and open circle both actually made as part of the floor or frame.

Best wishes

Don

@Don McErlean posted:

Well hello everyone.  Thanks to Arnold for starting this thread I wanted to do it but just didn't know how.  Its fun however and I can see lots of folks agree as they are posting and adding to the fun and our knowledge. ...snip...

@PRRMP54- Al ore car and Southern "Big John" hopper were great! Had never seen anything like the B&O "Pig Iron" flat ...snip...

Best wishes to all

Don

The "pig" actually referred to truck trailers as in piggy-back service; an early version of Trailer Train.

@PRRMP54 - Whoops!  Sorry. Dave I can see now that the configuration of the car would be supportive of the Trailer Train type concept.  Thanks for correcting me and now I know more which is good.

Best Wishes

Don

These were special runs by Nassau Hobby - a pair of Metro North and a pair of Lawn-guy-land happy hoppers!!!

And for a bit of a change, here are a few cylindrical happy hoppers…

When it comes to gondolas, I think the covered variety are particularly good!!!

Scotty to bridge.......  She's too long!!!!

Penn-Pacific and Arnold,

You are correct, the load in the double gondola are plastic Lionel trestle track connecting brackets. I don't use them for attaching my trestles and thought they'd make a good load.

@Lionelski posted:

Penn-Pacific and Arnold,

You are correct, the load in the double gondola are plastic Lionel trestle track connecting brackets. I don't use them for attaching my trestles and thought they'd make a good load.

That's a great idea for a load.

What do you think the load is in this gondola?

I'll give you a clue: the items in the gondola are made of metal. Why is that a good thing?

Arnold

@Arnold D. Cribari Those look like the clips used to keep tubular track from separating, and having them being made of metal makes it so you can pick them up with a magnetic crane. Very nice touch!

Here are some examples of my scale equipment:

Carner3000, you are 100% correct. Here are the 282 and 182 magnet cranes:

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

What do you think the load is in this gondola?

I'll give you a clue: the items in the gondola are made of metal. Why is that a good thing?

Arnold

Arnold,

O27 track ties and clips. Good thing to use with a Magnetic Gantry crane?

I do (along with pieces of rails and other scrap metal):

I like this "guess the load" game!

@Arnold D. Cribari-  Track clips for sure.  OBTW Arnold I love your "river" its great scenery.  I also get a  smile when I remeber your "Washing Machine" bridge!  Great fun!

Here are some more Hoppers'....Stay Happy everyone!

Here is the Lionel Chessie System Hopper #9016 from 1975-79 and1987-88

The Lionel 6076 SF Hopper from 1963

A Karl Bub Hopper (or Gondola) from the 1950's

A French Hornby Hatchette NORD hopper from the 1990's (reproduction of French Hornby of the 1950's)

A Hornby M1 LMS gondola or "open Wagon" from the 1950's

A Hornby M1 LNE gondola from the 1950's

OK so on we go!!  I am having fun, hope you are as well

Best Wishes

Don

@Lionelski posted:

Arnold,

O27 track ties and clips. Good thing to use with a Magnetic Gantry crane?

I do (along with pieces of rails and other scrap metal):

I like this "guess the load" game!

Don, we have a Mutual Admiration Society! I love your above photo of your magnet crane scene.

IMO, the 282 Magnet Crane has the most play value of any model railroad accessory. Arnold

Here is an interesting hopper from a Lionel uncataloged set made in 2000. The gold load was included with the car.

@ed h posted:

Here is an interesting hopper from a Lionel uncataloged set made in 2000. The gold load was included with the car.

ed h,

Nice car. I wonder who came up a gold load for a hppper first? Lionel or me.

See my post here yesterday

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Don, we have a Mutual Admiration Society! I love your above photo of your magnet crane scene.

IMO, the 282 Magnet Crane has the most play value of any model railroad accessory. Arnold

Thanks Arnold.

BTW, its John, not Don

Arnold,

I've always thought of the gondola and hopper cars as a palate for modifying or repainting.  Below are pictures of my 027 gondolas that were sliced in 2 the long way & reassembled to full O scale width.  Then painted and lettered with custom made decals and individually weathered.

Next are some lionel gons that were painted and relettered to NKP  using K4 decals. They'll be a good consist behind my NKP 2-6-6-2  mallet.

As for hoppers, I have a group of 12 WEAVER 2  bay hoppers that will also get the repaint and reletter to NKP.

Now if you were talking flat cars, that's another story.  Here's a group that have been chopped,  sides shaved,  spliced back together,  widened and turned into slab and billet carriers for my steel mill layout.

Too cold to paint them, besides I  have 4-5 more waiting work.

Hope you enjoy them.

John, I stand corrected. Always enjoy your very interesting photos of your outstanding layout.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

John, I stand corrected. Always enjoy your very interesting photos of your outstanding layout.

No worries, Arnold, and thanks again.

Just call me 'Ski - many of my friends do.

Now this hopper is so happy it's absolutely glowing!

Well I will try to continue this thread since it was my idea, I finally got to the train room and took some new pictures.  I plan to post them over the next few days as it turns out I have a LOT of gondola's (more than I ever realized).

When we first started Arnold posted his first gondola from 1954, an early Lionel PW version.  Well perhaps you didn't know but in 1945 the FIRST car that Lionel produced with a body molded in plastic (Bakelite they called it) was a gondola the #2452 PRR gondola produced 1945-1947 with type 1 metal trucks and coil couplers. This car was a real sensation in the industry and led to many others that followed.

The success of the molded gondola, quickly led to the # 2456 LV molded Hopper car in 1948.

Much later, and candidly much less realistic than the original 2452 was a succession of simple molded gondolas that populated many sets along the entire line.  This Lionel 6142 is from 1961-1963

But I could not leave out the Lionel - Ives 9 1/2" lithographed car from the 1933 to 1940.  In other posts you have now seen the lithographed box car, caboose, and now gondola.  This was the entire line of these cars, although some under went some color changes.

Well folks, hope you keep posting your gondolas and hoppers.  Best wishes

Don

Well here are some more "Happy Hoppers / Good Gondolas" and this time from American Flyer but pre-war, hence still "0" gauge Flyer (Chicago Flyer).  These were very late products by Chicago Flyer as by 1938 Mr. Coleman and A.C. Gilbert merged their companies and train production moved to New Haven and basically became concentrated in "S" gauge from its introduction in 1939.  So from 1936-37 here is some of the last Flyer 0 gauge freights.

Here is the # 311131 Sand Car as AF called their gondola's from 1936-37

The Pennsylvania RR Coal Hopper # 211567 from 1936-37.  This is the 4 wheel version but this same car also came on an 8 wheel frame with grey truck sides during the same time period.

Well that's a few additional gons and hoppers for you!  The longest lineup, the Marx 6" gondola line up tomorrow

Best Wishes

Don

As I alluded to in my earlier post, the Lionel mill gondolas are so big they just about qualify as "layout shrinkers"...

The smaller gon is one of the low-slung RailKing gondolas. Fits nicely inside the Lionel one

Of course I have both sizes of Lionel's traditional gondolas, as well as die-cast K-Line ones, MTH Premier (which I only recently discovered two of the three I had forotten I'd ordered), Atlas Trainman as well as their 1970's predecessors, a few Menards, two GGD battleship gons, several Kusan (and Williams-branded reboots of same) and at least one from Industrial Rail.

---PCJ

Ok fans of Hoppers and Gondola's, I have been promising a "Marx Fest" for awhile so today,Saturday, I had time to prepare all the photos.  So I thought I would present it in two parts...gondolas and then hoppers.  These are all from the Marx so called 6" tinplate line, his first and longest running line in his offerings.  It began with modifications to the Girard, "Joy Line" trains in about 1934 and continued to be produced in many liveries right until the end of Marx about 1982 however the original Marx had sold the company to Quaker Oats (like the Lionel cereal company sale) in 1972.

As we have commented before, gondolas and hoppers were favorites of the children who, at least with Marx 6" trains, were clearly the target market.  You could put things in them (toys, candy, soldiers, etc) and give them a ride around the circle of track to all sorts of imaginary destinations.  So to start off, here are the Marx 6" gondolas.  I would note at the beginning of this that Marx produced so many of these toys (output could reach 300,000 per year) that new ones are constantly appearing, so please just take this as a portion of the line with no claim of it being all of them.

Starting in about 1957, the Seaboard #91257 came in 3 basic colors.

The C.R.I.&P (Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific ) or "Rock Island" for short #552   This gon comes both with a red / white frame and with a black frame both dating from about 1938 or 1939.

The Rock Island #552 exhibiting the early 2 color lithography from about 1936

A later #552 with more elaborate livery from about 1940-42

The yellow # 241708 B&O from 1953

Two 8 wheel variations, one the 548 Gurnsey Milk (came with 4 milk cans) and the #552G Groceries and Sundries (came with a load of miniature cardboard product boxes (BonAmi powder, cough lozenges...etc ) both from about 1939.  As you might guess after 80+ years these loads are far more scarce than the cars!

Well I hope you liked my " Gondolas" from Marx.  They are fun to collect, have many, many variations.  Typically can be found at trains shows and even antique stores for less than $5 (the 8 wheel ones being more scarce and somewhat more expensive)...original loads are "out of sight" price-wise such that reproductions abound.

Hoppers next.

Best wishes for your weekend

Don

Well folks interested " Happy Hoppers" I thought i might continue with my group of Marx 6" hopper line.  Again this was Marx's (who already was the low price leader of the big 3) least expensive line of cars, although at the onset, these cars represented the full line of Marx at least through the early 30's.  So here are my Marx 6" "Happy Hoppers'

The #554 with red/white lithographed frame NP "General Coal Company" hopper from 1937-38

A somewhat later version with black frame and red exterior.  First introduced about 1938.

Much later, the #86000 D.L.&W hopper from about 1953

The PRR #738701 came as both a "high side" gondola and a hopper, from about 1940

Finally in about 1953-54, Marx switched its principal line of freight cars to plastic casting for increased size and realism.  Just to illustrate, here is the #28236 "Virginian" hopper from about 1955.  In contrast to the many 6" hoppers or gondolas, Marx only made 2 plastic hoppers (although the color sometimes changes) the Virginian and a Lehigh Valley.

Well Happy Hopper fans, that is my offering of Marx 6" Gondolas and Hoppers.

Best wishes for a great weekend.

Don

Well folks, sorry to be continuing to dredge up gondolas, but in searching for something to post to "Box Car Sunday" I found 2 more early American Flyer (Chicago Flyer) gondolas.  These 6 1/2 " sand cars as they were called were lithographed from 1919 to 1935.  The 4 wheel cars were cataloged as 1113 and the 8 wheel as 1116, however review of the catalog illustrations show both were usually lithographed 1116 thus the major difference between them being the frame and wheels.  

This dark green version, 4 wheel but marked 1116 with red NYC herald is one of the earlier versions.  Likely from the early 1920's

Likely dating to the middle 20's, this 8 wheeled version is labeled for the PRR.  I like the black keystone containing the words "Pennsylvania System".  The use of the "system" term seems unusual to me on PRR rolling stock.

OK that's it for me at least for today

Best wishes

Don