Off the top of my head without digging into references, I think the real difference (and visible if a USRA and a GLa are put next to each other) is that the GLa is about a foot shorter in height.
I finally paid more than I wanted for a Yoder GLca in O scale (and ended up with two GLa's as well) because it is such a distinctive car, and often found on other northeastern railroads; a year or so after that I was able to buy a PSC GLca for somewhat less (although still not cheap) which is almost as accurate as the Yoder; finally a year or so ago I found one of the old Max Gray imports (never rerun by USHobbies, so fairly hard to find) which is not so accurate as even the PSC but definitely does communicate the characteristic appearance of a GLca. My long-standing thesis is that there are at least a half-dozen distinctive prototype freight cars which were routinely interchanged during the steam/early diesel era so many of us favor, and that a serious modeler of that period ought to have at least one each: MILW ribside, B&O wagontop, PRR X29, N&W peak-end twin hopper, and, of course, the GLca (others would occur to me if I thought a bit longer). A much shorter list than the long-running series Ted Culotta has done in RMC, but probably sufficient for smaller operations. As I was suggesting, these were hard enough to find in O scale: ribsides were made in kit form many years ago by Lobaugh and Graceline (embossed card sides) and more recently in urethane bodies by Ted Schnepf; Ted also has released a wagontop in urethane and Weaver is promising a mass-market one later this year (years ago Walthers and Lobaugh offered wood kits for a slightly different class); FINALLY Atlas paired with Middle Division to produce mass-market models of the X-29 and H-21 (Walthers had a wood and lead casting kit many years ago, and Des Plaines offered a very limited run of urethane kits for the former). IMP imported both the N&W hopper and a wagontop from Japan in the 1950's, but both need work to look right, and Ambroid/QC offered a nice wood and whitemetal kit (actually also offered in S scale--I was able to buy one at Duluth), and many, many years ago RailCraft had a semi-kit produced in Missouri. That's it. Everything else for these very common cars, even in O scale, means expensive and often hard to find brass. The reason I have taken so much band-width is really not unrelated to S scale; if these are so hard find in O scale--which is what, ten times the market of S scale? Twenty times? Fifty times? Some of these have been offered in S but so far as I can tell, all as brass imports. One cannot blame the manufacturers when the market is still so small. If S scale were my primary interest, life would be even more difficult if I had to find examples of these very common prototypes for a representative railroad model. I guess I'm glad I don't, and I really don't have a good solution to this problem, just stating what I see as a problem. And closing the circle on this, I'd agree that serious PRR modelers would want at least a few GLa's, but I'm not so sure the rest of us feel the same sense of urgency. Jace Kahn General Manager Ceres & Canisteo RR Co./Champlain County Traction Co. > --- In [email protected], "Bill Lane" <b...@...> wrote: > >I am sure there is some Hopper Guru > > that can tell the difference, but the GLa looks like a regular 2 bay ribbed > > side hopper to me. > > I am that hopper guru (for the first half of the 20th century, at least). > > > I can tell the USRA version (GLd I think) but here was only 300 of them. > > Ask me about the Gld with H21 side stakes sometime. > > > You could start with the old American Models hopper or get the SHS 2 bay > > ribbed hopper and remove the gussets underneath the slope sheet. USRA in GLa > > clothing. Git Er Dun.. > > Being a guru has its disadvantages, though the AM hopper looks to be a good > starting point for some VGN cars. > > David Thompson [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
