N ACF 4600 3-Bay CF Hopper, C&NW #180312

MODEL FEATURES:

Three body styles:

Early - High side ladder & brake wheel, single side stiffener

Mid - Low brake wheel, short side ladders both ends, single side stiffener

Late - Low brake wheel, short side ladders both ends, double side stiffeners (post 1971)

Round or trough hatches

Photo-etched metal roofwalk

Separately applied wire grab irons and stirrup steps

Detailed outlets

Multiple roadnumbers

Fully-assembled and ready-to-run out of the box

Accurately painted and printed

Highly-detailed, injection molded body

Separately applied brake wheel

Screw mounted trucks

100-ton trucks with 36" machined metal wheels

Body-mounted McHenry^® operating scale knuckle couplers

Weighted for optimum performance

Minimum radius: 9¾"

PRIMED FOR GRIME MODELS FEATURE

Duplicated look and feel of "In Service" equipment

Faded base colors matched to the prototype

Perfect starting point for adding grime and rust

PROTOTYPE AND BACKGROUND INFO:

The 3-bay CenterFlow covered hopper first entered service in the mid-1960s, built by American Car and Foundry. The cars handle loads such as grain, corn and similar bulk commodities. The Centerflow design relies on the car's rounded body to provide structural strength - eliminating the traditional center sill, and making gravity unloading easier.

Our 3-bay car represents the common 4600 cu.ft. capacity version. The railroads looking to replace their aging 40' box cars in grain service needed a modern hopper design - one that could operate within the tighter Plate B clearances for light branchline and industrial service. ACF's design won them many contracts from a plethora of railroads. One can find these cars still in revenue service today in grain trains and other similar service.