Bowser - 38264 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 100 Ton - Wheeling & Lake Erie - 526

Prototype History: The 1960s brought about a growth in car size (and capacity). Railroads that transported coal moved away from the older 2-bay 55-ton USRA standard to newer 90- and 100-ton three bay hoppers. On the WM, the first 90 ton cars were purchased for stone service to Sparrows Point around 1963. These cars were effective and long-lived. Many railroads swapped out the trucks on these cars to increase the capacity to 100 tons. Many companies produced these, including Pullman, Bethlehem, Evans, Greenville, Trinity and Ortner. Details, of course, vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but typically they were rib-sided. As of 2007, the NS still had lots of 90 ton hoppers in coal service.

Road Name History: The Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (reporting mark WLE) was a Class I railroad mostly within the U.S. state of Ohio. It was leased to the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate Road) in 1949, and merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1988. A new regional railroad reused the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway name in 1990 when it acquired most of the former W&LE from the N&W.

At the end of 1944, W&LE operated 507 miles of road and 1003 miles of track; that year it reported 2371 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 0.002 million passenger-miles.

The current Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway (reporting mark WE) is a Class II regional railroad that provides freight service, mainly in the U.S. state of Ohio. It took its name from the former Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, most of which it bought from the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1990.

Read more on Wikipedia.

Brand/Importer Information: On May 1, 1961, Bowser was purchased by Lewis and Shirlee English and moved from Redlands, CA to their basement in Muncy, PA. The original Bowser Manufacturing Co first advertised in the model railroad magazines in November 1948. At that time, the company had only one (HO Scale) engine, the Mountain, which had a cast brass boiler that is no longer available. It was sometime later that Bowser (Redlands) developed the NYC K-11 and the UP Challenger. The molds were made by K. Wenzlaff who introduced himself at the MRIA Show in Pasadena, CA in 1985 These two locomotives are still current production.

Bowser entered into N Scale in 1998 with their acquisition of the Delaware Valley Car Company, a manufacturer of N scale freight cars.