PREORDER Rapido HO 149008 Enterprise 2-Bay Covered Hopper, Canadian National Set #1 (6) | 313.22

The Rapido Trains HO Scale Enterprise 2-Bay Covered Hopper is based on carsbuilt beginning in 1948. Covered hoppers started to become a major carstyle just prior to WWII and are one of the dominant car types on railroadstoday. Early development of covered hoppers tended to center around two-baycars, with few mass-produced cars built until the 1950s. During the earlydevelopment of covered hoppers, New York Central built several differentgroups of "Enterprise" covered hoppers both for its own use and for itssubsidiaries. The first groups were built immediately before World War IIin 1939 and 1940. These cars proved quite successful, and in 1948 NYC builtanother group of 750 cars under Lot (the NYC's classification system)number 747-H. The post-war cars were slightly larger than theirpredecessors with a 2000 cubic foot capacity. They utilized StandardRailway Equipment steel roof panels which had four offset roof hatches oneach side versus the five hatches per side on the pre-war cars. An unknownnumber of these cars were fitted with smaller, circular hatches for flourand sugar loading. Lot 747-H cars proved so successful that additional carsfollowed in Lots 783, 784 and 785. The later series differed in usingdiagonal panel roofs but were otherwise identical to the Lot 747 cars.Concurrently, Canadian National also built 150 cars to largely the samedesign. Delivered in 1948, the CN cars differed from the NYC's in thedesign of roof panels, side panels, hatch spacing and construction details.NYC's cars operated well into the Penn Central era and some were convertedfor company MOW service. The CN cars remained in service for many years,with some being later converted to ballast cars for maintenance of way use.The Rapido Trains cars are accurately scaled from prototype blueprints andfield measurements and feature appropriate NYC or CN body style and fullydetailed underbodies. The cars are accurately decorated and are availableindividually and in multiple-car packs with multiple roadnumbers. TheEnterprise 2-Bay Covered Hoppers are part of the line of Rapido Trains HO Scale freight carsand containers.