Athearn Ready To Roll™
Ortner 5 Bay Rapid Discharge
Hopper Cars

Athearn Trains
1550 Glenn Curtiss Street
Carson, CA 90746
www.athearn.com

HO Scale
Ready To Roll™ Ortner 5-Bay Rapid Discharge Hopper Cars Five Pack MSRP $89.98

Available Sets:
3 sets each of five cars decorated for Union Pacific, Santa Fe, MPSX, KMCX, CSDU, BM&LP
Single cars available undecorated. MSRP $18.98

The first railways were initially introduced to remove minerals from the earth's grasp. Transporting these minerals as continued to be a major component of most railroad operations into the modern era. Cars with heavier per car lading have been in the forefront of this trend. Streamlining the process of rapidly loading and discharging has led to the development of an entire range of specialized equipment that sees common usage today. The Ortner Corporation has been on the leading edge of rolling stock development and in the 1970s this led to the introduction of their 100 ton 5-bay rapid discharge hoppers.

Model Die Casting originally released models to this car in the 1980s. These models have been a mainstay for many modelers striving to replicate the modern era on their railways. Recently, Athearn Trains has acquired the original tooling and added them to the popular Ready To Roll™ line. Comparing of the newer Athearn release with the original demonstrates the improvements that the Athearn team has incorporated into the design of this model to bring it up to current rolling stock standards.

Athearn "Ready to Roll" set of five "CSDU" Ortner 5-Bay Rapid Discharge Hopper Cars was submitted for this review. We were able to pull an original MDC model decorated for the Southern Railway from our collection to demonstrate the quantum improvements built into the new RTR releases.

The prototype for this model is the 100-Ton capacity rapid-discharge hopper car built by the Ortner Freight Car Company (which subsequently became part of Trinity Industries) beginning in the 1970's. These cars were designed for use in unit train service with continuous unloading capability. In addition to the usual air brake system, these cars were equipped with a second air system that would automatically open and re-close the 5 sets of bottom hopper doors. Each car has small shoes that contact a third rail mounted about 3 feet above the running rails at the unloading facility. A low voltage on the third rail causes the car doors to open over the unloading pit, and a second third rail at the end of the facility causes the doors to re-close. This set of cars is lettered "CSDU" with CSUX reporting marks, representing the fleet of Ortner cars now operated by Colorado Springs Utilities.

This model is a significantly improved, ready-to-run version of the old Roundhouse 172x series 5-bay rapid discharge hopper car kits. The 25 year-old original kit comprised a plastic body with all detail except the brake wheel cast on, and a die-cast under frame with solid floors at the ends that mounted the typical 3-piece AB air brake details.

The new model is a major revision of this product with several significant improvements. On the car body, the rungs on the four corner ladders are now separately applied formed wire, as are the four corner grab irons on the top of the car, four grab irons on the end sills and four corner stirrup steps. The brake wheel on the CSDU cars has been moved to the top of the car end, but the parts diagrams shows that Athearn also provides a low mounted brake wheel, so the model can correctly match the choice of positions Ortner offered its customers. On the "B" end of the car, the AB brake components are now mounted in the correct positions with the air reservoir attached to the hopper end bulkhead. Athearn has added the hopper door air tank and actuating cylinder to the "A" end of the car, and the two door actuating shoes on the lower edge of the car sides.

Athearn has made even more improvements to the underbody. The die-cast frame has been revised, and now has open ends on the frame with diagonal braces at the corners. The under frame is now securely attached to the car body with small screws. The hopper door detail has been completely revised and new detail parts have been added between the hoppers representing the door operating mechanisms. This makes a significant improvement when the car is viewed at eye-level and fills in the empty space on the old model. Completing the underbody are trucks with free-rolling blackened metal wheel sets, and factory installed Kadee-compatible couplers. The car weighs 4.8 oz., which exactly conforms to the NMRA recommendation for a car of this length.

The revised model comes with a nicely shaped plastic coal load installed. Removing this load reveals that Athearn has not neglected the hopper interior. The plain smooth surfaces of the old kit now have representations of the strengthening ribs on the end slope sheets. The four sets of tubular steel interior braces are also modeled.

Plans for the Ortner rapid-discharge hopper cars appeared in the July 1981 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman and in the August 1981 issue of Model Railroader. The RMC plans were for a special four-bay version of the car delivered to the Southern Railway. The old Roundhouse and revised Athearn models closely match the plans for the five-bay version that appeared in MR.

Athearn has produced an excellent, high quality model of a widely used prototype. It is to their credit to have made such sweeping improvements to a long popular model.

Reviewed by  George Riley