Need drawings for PRR H21A hopper cars. Helps!

WM183 Aug 29, 2022

  1. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    Hi all.

    I have checked my usual sources (Haithi Trust, Google, etc) for a good drawing (not a simple clearance diagram in this case) of a PRR H21A hopper. I want to build a couple of these in 0 scale, and as I will be scratchbuilding it, need a drawing that at least shows major dimensions, particularly rib spacing and dimensions of structural members. Does anyone know of a source for such a drawing, or have one to hand? They built a zillion of the things, there has to be a drawing somewhere? I need a GL drawing too, but as I believe these are almost identical to the USRA hopper (Based on them I believe?) this one is not as big an issue.

    Thanks much!

    Amanda (in the Netherlands, hence the scratchbuilds)
     
  2. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    I have, in fact, located drawings for the GLa from an old issue of Car Builder's Cyclopedia. So, yep, H21a is my biggest gap in PRR stuffs!
     
  3. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

    10,677
    44,870
    142
    Good to have you back @WM183 . (y)

    https://www.pmrr.org/Library/Magazines/ByAuthorJohn_Teichmoeller.php may have H21d plans in this issue of Keystone Modeler. I'm not at all sure through. Kind of amazing that Railroad Model Craftsman never offered drawings for this.

    The site http://www.olimpia.com:8084/search is another model railroad magazine index site that might be helpful. Entering H21 shows four articles, with the May 1994 MR having some detail, but no drawing is mentoned. Try https://rrmagazineindex.org/ too. It brings up a longer list where you might find something.
     
    WM183 likes this.
  4. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

    2,093
    6,282
    65
  5. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    Thanks guys! It is indeed good to be back. With loads of Real Life Stuff, I have been rather predisposed.

    I want to get Teichmoller's book, but as I have to pay for international shipping I want to be *sure* it has a good H21 erection drawing or GA in it. There is one Model Railroader article that comes up that may show some promise, but... I don't generally expect good GA drawings in MR. The typical "book of freight car diagrams" type drawings just aren't much use; they are meant to show shippers and receivers the dimensions of the car and overall capacity to be sure they fit their physical plant and their specific needs. They never cared whether the main side sills were 10x2.5 inches or 12x3 inches =D

    I found the Rochester and Genesee site! Their drawing is nice, but has no dimensions. I found a fairly good clearance drawing that DOES show rib dimensions, but little else. I am utterly amazed I am having this much trouble finding one - I figured it would be straightforward. Bowser had to have found one somewhere, I suppose.

    I also need to find one for an H8a, buuuut I MAY be able to make do with some really good prints I have for the K4 and L1; PRRs frame design was really consistent and all.
     
  6. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

    10,677
    44,870
    142
  7. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    Hey Dan,

    Thanks much! I have spent probably *days* worth of time on the prr.railfan.net site. It is a gold mine for anything Pennsy, and thus, for anyone modelling anything in the Northeast anywhere between 1900 and like 1980 or so. I did find a drawing there that shows rib spacing. I can probably make do with that, so we shall see. Every layout needs an X29 and a H21, after all. I have moved my era forward to 1930 or so; loads of stair-step looking wooden boxcars, composite and wooden gons, and 19th century holdouts among a sea of new USRA and "new fangled" steel cars just interests me much more than I can say! Freight cars are my favorite bit of the hobby, after all!

    Small club or exhibition layouts are very common on this side of the pond, and a simple loading dock with a boxcar or two spotted alongside set somewhere grotty and unmistakably Pennsylvania or Ohio is my current plan. A wheezy teakettle shows up once in a while to bother those wooden boxcars - and the local sleepy cat and/or hobo - and leaves again - bliss!
     
    Hardcoaler and Shortround like this.
  8. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    I got it! It's for the early version with the clamshell doors, but it's an H21!

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

    10,677
    44,870
    142
    Excellent! And here I thought clamshell doors were a contemporary development ...... :oops:
     
  10. WM183

    WM183 TrainBoard Member

    601
    597
    17
    Hehe. Originally (If I get my PRR history right) they were a 50 ton coke car. Coke is lighter by volume than coal, so the car was rated at 50 tons. When they discovered coke can be carried in virtually anything, they repurposed the cars with the standard hoppers and doors (I think) and rated them at 70 tons - likely with new trucks - for coal. Photos I have seen of Lake Erie ports in the 1930s are just endless seas of these and NYC USRA cars, outnumering all others by at least 10:1
     
    Kurt Moose and Hardcoaler like this.

Share This Page