Rapido Trains - 560009A - Covered Hopper, 4-Bay, Procor 5820 - Essex Terminal

Model Information: The Rapido Procor 5820 Covered Hopper car was designed from blue prints, photos and field measurements. Multiple roof hatches, outlet gates cap off this workhorse car. For any layout that needs a fleet of pellet hoppers, the Procor 5820 is a car you won’t want to miss!

Features:

• Three styles of roof hatches: round, round with ribs and 20” vented cover
• Two styles of outlet gates: pneumatic and Miner
• Etched walkways
• Spare hatches included in polybag to let modeler modify for different era
• Full end cage details
• Accurate paint and lettering
• Multiple road numbers available for each scheme
• Available in singles or multi-packs

Prototype History: Designed fully by Procor, this hopper was built in batches from the late 70s all the way up through the early 90s. Around 1500 examples were built for Procor and Dow Chemical in their Oakville, Ontario facility. Essex Hybrid would later receive a handful of cars for seed service. Many of these were ex Procor hoppers patched out.

Road Name History: The ETR was built between 1902 and 1918 and serves a 21 mile line from Windsor through La Salle to Amherstburg, Ontario. In the steam era they interchanged with Canadian National, Canadian Pacific, New York Central, Pere Marquette (later C&O) and Wabash. Today, they serve 15 customers in Windsor and a few in Amherstberg and continue to build new spurs as needed. Today’s ETR locomotive fleet consists of a pair of GP9’s, an SW1500, an SW1200, and an SW14 (an SW7 rebuilt in Illinois Central Gulf’s Paducah Shops.)

Brand/Importer Information: Rapido Trains Inc. is a high-end manufacturer of model trains and accessories in HO, OO and N (North American 1:160 and British 1:148) scales. The firm's mission is to recreate the entire rail travel experience, from fully-detailed interiors and under-frames on models to fully-wired telephone poles for model railroads.

The name RAPIDO was introduced by Canadian National in 1965 to headline the railway's high-speed intercity passenger services. Until the mid-1980s, RAPIDO stood for fast schedules, frequent trains, and superb service.

Today, Rapido Trains continues the RAPIDO concept with state-of-the-art models and attention to fine detail. This company is not related to the venerable (and now defunct) German manufacturer Arnold Rapido, nor the present-day Arnold (which is owned by the United Kingdom's Hornby), Canadian based Rapido Trains was founded in 2003.