PRIVATE COAL MINING COMPANIES

BERWIND WHITE COAL MINING CO., BAKER-WHITELEY COAL CO.
JAMISON COAL & COKE CO., WESTMORELAND COAL CO.
GLa TWIN HOPPER CARS

Image courtesy CDS Lettering, Ltd.

During the first decade of the 20th century, hopper car technology began to coalesce around a design that included a car body of approximately 30', having twin hoppers and 7 exterior riveted pressed steel posts.  After purchasing many thousands of hopper cars built to earlier designs, the PRR also adopted such a pattern when they began to acquire their class GLa hoppers cars beginning in 1905.  Several private coal mining companies also purchased twin hoppers built to this design.  For example, the Berwind White Coal Mining Company acquired 2,030 hopper cars during the same period.  The Baker-Whiteley Coal Company, the Jamison Coal & Coke Company, and the Westmoreland Coal Company were other operations that also purchased the cars, although most of these were later sold to railroads.  The Westmoreland cars went to the PRR in 1942; the Berwind cars followed in 1964.  The B&O acquired the Jamison cars in 1917, reclassing them N-15 hoppers.

SRCC is not offering a kit per-se for the GLa.  Another modeler had offered cast urethane end sills in S scale, and here SRCC is offering an unlettered SHS USRA hopper car with ARA Y cast side frame trucks, SHS vertical staff brake wheel, urethane roping staples, CDS lettering, and a sheet of car history and instructions on how to convert the car to create a model better representing the GLa.  The characteristic end sills are not included.

NOTE: The car instructions will not be complete until I receive end sill castings myself and have time to complete a conversion.  Anyone ordering a coal company car before those instructions are complete will receive them via mail or email as soon as they are completed.

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