The content of this web page is presented as historical information only. It is
hoped that this will be of some use to railroad historians and model railroaders.
Source
The information in these pages was obtained from the THE OFFICIAL RAILWAY EQUIPMENT REGISTER, OCTOBER 1941. Data was copied from the ORER into a spreadsheet to calculate the derived data, such as subtotals for each PRR class.
Interpretation of data
This information was gathered primarily for the purpose of modeling. If you are modeling the period immediately prior to W.W.II, you can use this information in building your fleet of PRR open top hopper models.
The ORER lists cars ordered by car number. Each line item gives a range of numbers, or one number if there is only one car. The listing on this web site always contains a range of numbers. If there is only one car, then the low and high numbers are the same.
Use the page Open Top Hoppers by Car Number to find the class given a car number, or to find if a particular number on a model is valid for October, 1941.
Use the page Open Top Hoppers by PRR Class to find valid car numbers for a given class of car. Subtotals are given for the number of cars in each class. Also, subtotal percentages of the grand total are computed for each class, showing the percent of the total number of open top hoppers each class represents. You can use this to plan your purchase of hopper cars for your layout. For example, if you model the time period just prior to W.W.II, and you need about 100 hopper cars on your layout, plan on having about 30 Gla, 10 Glc, 50 H21a, 7 H25, and 3 H22a cars. This will give a good mix of cars for the period.
Modeling information
Click on Bowser H21a Cars by Car Number for a convenient cross reference to Bowser's web site listing of H21a cars produced by Bowser.
Feedback
Please send comments and questions to Dale Muir