Description
For Sale: Megow 1930’s C&O Hopper Car O Gauge Rare Collectible PN#60Megow
We recently found in our reference model collection a very early Megow O Scale Chesapeake & Ohio round end hopper railroad car. This piece came out in the early 1930’s and listed as a kit in the O Gauge section of their catalog. It is unusually rare because it was the first cast aluminum model that pre-dates die casting. Thus, the detail was so good as to distinguish it from the other common toy trains of its time. It was simple to build, very inexpensive in the 1930’s & 1940’s and was available in many hobby shops in the country. This would probably not be a model one runs on the layout in order to preserve its good condition and value.
The original model did not come with detail parts such as the air brake components, trucks, couplers or decals. The trucks, couplers, brake wheel and air brake detail was added at a later date. We have the original blueprint from which the kit instructions were developed and we include the drawings with this model to document how the modeler should have gone about building the kit.
Because this is a model of parts that were cast, the weight of this model with trucks and couplers is 1 lb 9.25 oz rather heavy and no doubt it stayed on the tracks even without a load of coal. Even if compared by today’s standards of injection molded models, this model stands out as an achievement toward transitioning toy trains into actual scale model detail for realism that was not common back in those days except by what master craftsman scratch builders could achieve.
This hopper is what is known as a 50 ton offset side and was very common on the railroads, not just to the C&O Railroad. Measuring 34 scale feet in length and 9 3/4 scale feet in width, the car ends were of a dreadnaught design, rounded at the top following closely the prototypes that ran in its day. The likely reason this model was developed was because so many of these were manufactured for the rail companies in this era, a common site to rail fans in their day.
The only defect on this car is 1 missing corner step. Sold as is as built, as a collectible it should hold or increase in value in years to come.
To see the original drawing of the Megow O Scale Chesapeake & Ohio round end hopper railroad car click on this link: Megow C&O Hopper Car Drawings
