• Product: Bethlehem 3600 cuft Quad Hopper
  
• Scale: HO Scale 1:87.1
• Truck: Tangent 100-Ton N-11 Roller Bearing
• Wheels: 36″ Metal Wheels

Union Pacific (UP) “Original H-100-16” in the classic, traditional “Freight Car Red” paint with large Union Pacific spelled out in white.  Please note these red cars include painted trucks to match the carbody color, just like UP paint practices!

These distinctive 100 ton quad hoppers match the Union Pacific specification and were built by Bethlehem Steel in the 1970s.  Our UP replicas represent more than 6,900 “quad” hoppers, UP’s largest fleet of coal hoppers in company history.

(click to enlarge)

Our motto is “Unparalleled scale replicas for discriminating railroad modelers”.  We hope you’ll agree! Our Bethlehem Quad Hopper replicas include:

• Highly accurate “true to life” colors
• Exact fonts and lettering placement
• Painted, scale-sized wire grabirons and coupler lift bars for strength and durability
• Air hoses
• Thin-profile brake piping
• See-through etched metal brake platforms
• L-shaped end-sheet supports
• Interior bracing detail
• Highly-detailed hopper bay outlet gates
• “Narrow appearance” coupler box with Kadee® scale couplers
• Ready-to-operate model with hidden weights
• Tangent 100-ton N-11 trucks with free-rolling metal wheels
• A “Tangent-accurate” non-symmetrical, properly-sloped coal load
• Dimensional accuracy – scaled from prototype plans
• Car number selection process – we select car numbers from online or published sources, focusing on late era numbers to represent more than 35 years in continuous operation.

Prototype Information – Bethlehem-design UP Quad Hopper

In addition to producing unparalleled scale replicas, one of the primary goals of Tangent Scale Models is to link our scale replicas to their prototypes.  We do this by showing prototype photos on our website, so that our customers can compare the two and compare them to each other.  You can find these prototype images on the order pages for each product – click on the images to see them large!  As you can see, we are not afraid of being held to a prototype standard, and we are the only brand that shows prototype photos to compare the models to.

For our Bethlehem-design Union Pacific Hopper, we have taken this practice to a new level.   Not only will be show roster shots of the real cars on the website product pages, but we want to assemble an in-depth combination of the hoppers working throughout the US in trains.  This means action shots, switch lists, and other sources of documentation.  Please let us know if you have something to contribute here!   And don’t forget, we offer these beautiful models in HO Scale.  Go ahead and splurge on a few or a train for yourself!

These cars represent UP’s largest fleet of coal hoppers in company history.  First produced in 1974 by Bethlehem Steel as UP class H-100-10, production of a majority of the fleet occurred in UP’s Albina Shops in PortlandOR between 1976 and 1981.  Production of this important fleet ended with the H-100-23 class, after UP placed more than 6,400 of these “quad” hoppers in service in the rapidly-growing Western low-sulfur coal market.  These cars became the workhorses of the UP coal fleet, serving coal originations in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and the PowderRiver Basin, and sometimes on non-UP coal originations such as DRGW, Utah, and Wyoming & Colorado (former UP branchline).  The DRGW origins became part of Union Pacific in 1996, and to this day these mines continue to load these UP quad hoppers!

UP’s quad hoppers wandered both systemwide and to offline railroads as customers sourced coal from a variety of origins.  A sample destination to the west that received coal in these hoppers was Southern California’s Kaiser Steel located in FontanaCA, as well as the bulk export terminal at San Pedro.  Trains of quad hoppers for these customers operated over CajonPass with various motive power groupings, most notably mixed DRGW and UP power (plus helpers).  A few sample eastern gateways in early years were the Commonwealth Edison Co. power plants at Waukegan IL and Hammond IN, Kansas City Power & Light at Kansas City MO, Illinois Central destinations for TVA in Kentucky, not to mention Eastern and Midwestern carriers both in carload (sourced for cement and other production purposes) and unit train services.  These quad hoppers continue to serve, operating to customers without dedicated bank-owned coal sets, as well as services literally anywhere when customers in North America want to increase coal deliveries from UP sources.  Finally, the quad hoppers have been spotted in non-coal services such as miscellaneous aggregates, coke, and sugar beet services.