MTH - Premier Freight Cars - 4-Bay Hopper Car - O Scale 3 Rail

This car is likely the last hurrah of the bottom unloading coal hopper. Its prototype was built largely in the 1960s and '70s, just before the destinations for these cars - mainly utility power plants and harbor side shipping facilities - began switching to rotary unloading. While many of these cars survive in service today, newer coal cars are technically not hoppers at all. With trough-like bottoms and no hopper doors, they're actually high-sided gondolas designed solely for rotary unloading.