We have received many questions regarding the Saskatchewan Grain Hopper.  We will attempt to answer some of the more commonly asked questions.

Q:  I have read the requirements to purchase car no 11-10001003.  It is not clear however if I can purchase six (6) 11-10011001 and six (6) 10001002 or  must I purchase twelve (12) of either the 01 or 02?  I would order 6 + 6 +1 if I can.

A:  In order to purchase the special car (11-10001003 N Scale or 11-30001003 HO  Scale) you must purchase a total of twelve regular hoppers.  This can be made up any combination of CN or CP cars.  If you purchase all 24 Saskatchewan Grain Hoppers you will receive the special/25th car free.   CLICK HERE to see the story of the Special / 25th car.

Q:  I model Canadian National and there are only 12 CN cars and I would like to run a longer grain train but don't want to duplicate road numbers,  Will you be doing more road numbers?

A:  After these car are all sold we may decide to do different road numbers.  You might want to consider ordering additional grain hoppers with CP markings as the only difference in the cars is the reporting mark (for CN is SKNX and for CP is SKPX). These are real rolling stock and as such the SKNX and the SKPX are running in the same consist as mixed as rolling stock is on freight trains.  You can point out that your grain train has these integrated with the Alberta, the Red Canada, the Government of Canada each of which has both CP and CN reporting marks running within the same train.  If you are a purist, I doubt that anyone will notice the difference except you.

Q:  If the only difference is the single letter in the reporting mark, why does CN own some of these cars and CP own the others?

A:  CN & CP do not own these grain hoppers.  They are owned by Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation (a crown corporation of the Government of Saskatchewan).  They CN & CP reporting marks for maintenance puroses only. Think of it as a service contract in which half of your fleet is maintained by Canadian National and the other half maintained by Canadian Pacific.  That way you don't have to build your own repair facility.

Q:  If these grain hoppers are CN & CP, why should I buy them if they are Canadian  (I live in the USA)?

A: The Saskatchewan grain cars are owned by a Canadian company but they travel all over North America.  They can be seen on all the major railways ( BNSF, NS, SP, UP, and yes even FCM- Mexico).  Grain from Saskatchewan is shipped to all major ports in North America as well as milling facilities in major cities.

Q:  Will there be additional paint schemes available or is this a one shot offering?

A:  North American Railcar Corp will be introducing 10 more paint schemes at the NMRA convention and show this July.   You can get a sneak preview of the paint schemes if you have a "Porters" account at Pacific Western Rail Systems.  If you don't have free a "Porters"/ Extranet account you can apply for one by going to  https://www.pwrs.ca/client_services/ 

Q:  Who made the Saskatchewan Grain Hopper for you?  Is this another special run being done for you by Intermountain?

A:   The new Green Saskatchewan  Grain car made by North American Railcar Corporation is based on the Hawker Siddlely prototype and is manufactured for us in China, by Sanda Kan Industries. Sanda Kan manufactures model railroad cars and locomotives for most of all the major model companies we hold near and dear. i.e. Atlas, Walthers, Intermountain, etc. They have been doing this for over twenty years. Our new Hawker Siddlely Car compliments the Intermountain version of the National Steel Car 4 bay cylindrical Hopper, allowing modelers the choise of running both types of cars on their layout for the first time.

Q:   Can I use your new Saskatchewan Grain cars on any type or brand of track or turnouts?

A:   North American Railcar intentionally designed this hopper to be as protypically correct as possible, and we tried to raise the benchmark.  As such we pushed the limites to a new higher standard.  One of those areas was the width of the wheel tread.  Until now the tread width used by other manufacturers has been over sized to allow it to run on all manufacturers track and turnouts. When we designed the wheel tread we requested the factory insure the cars would opperate on what we consider to be track and turnouts with higher standards, such as Kato, Walthers Code 83, and Peco.  Now with the whole model railroad industry generally trying to increase and improve standards and quality, we were able to produce a better running wheel with a more prototypically correct tread width.  For those few who are experiencing difficulties, North American Railcar Corp is producing a wheel with a wider tread.  We will be sending out a notice when these arrive from the factory (expected this Fall).

      For those of you who do not have high quality track, we regret any inconvenience this is causing.  Those few customers who have advised us of the problem, found in some cases that their track was out of guage. On a few turnouts made by certain manufactures the problem is caused by a small notch cut in the rail, near the point where the frogs meet the rail as the turnout is thrown. The wheels will pick this notch and derail.

dgs