N Hobby Distributing - 61 - Covered Hopper, 4-Bay, ACF Centerflow - Food Machinery Corporation - 45055, 45058, 45063

Specific Item Information: Only 250 sets made.

Model Information: This model was originally produced by Roco for Atlas and appears in the Atlas 1967 catalog labeled "Coming Soon" with three road names. They are stamped 'Atlas Austria' on the bottom. The molds seems to have been owned by Atlas as they brought them to their New Jersey factory from Europe and started US production in 1986. The new releases were stamped "Atlas USA". This later release was numbered as the 3700 series with seven road names.

These two versions can be distinguished from the later Chinese version because there is only a single ridge towards the roof on the sides of the hopper.

Prototype History: Contemporary 2-bay covered hoppers, like ACF's Centerflows, were 100-ton cars designed to haul dense loads, like cement. Their larger 3 and 4-bay brethren, while usually still having 100 ton capacities, were designed for lighter-density loads, like grain or flour. Their sizes had to do with the fact that a low-density product like grain will "cube out" the cubic capacity of a smaller 2-bay car way before you hit the cars' tonnage rating. Conversely, load a 3 or 4-bay covered hopper to its cubic maximum with a dense product like cement, and you'll wind up with a seriously overloaded car tonnage wise. In short, keep the smaller 2-bay cars for heavy commodities, and keep the larger cars for lighter loads like grains, sugar, flour, etc.

Road Name History: FMC Corporation is an American chemical manufacturing company headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The company was originally founded by chemist John Bean in 1883 as the Bean Spray Pump Company in Los Gatos, California, producing piston pumps for insecticides. In 1928, Bean Spray Pump purchased two companies: the Anderson-Barngrover Co. and Sprague-Sells Co. At this time the company changed its name to Food Machinery Corporation, and began using the initials FMC.

In 1941 the company FMC received a contract to design and build amphibious landing vehicles tracked vehicles for the United States War Department, and afterwards the company continued to diversify its products, including an extensive line of rail cars. The rail car production really kicked into high gear during the 1970s when FMC produced many models to take advantage of the Per Diem rules. Between 1965 and 1985 FMC was the owner of the Gunderson metal works in Springfield, Oregon, during that period it was known as the "Marine and Rail Equipment Division of FMC" (MRED), it was sold in 1985 to The Greenbrier Companies.
FMC employs 7,000 people worldwide, and had gross revenues of US$2.8 billion in 2017

From Wikipedia

Brand/Importer Information: N Hobby Distributing (NHD) was based at 24 York Towne Drive, Englishtown, NJ 07726.

Manufacturer Information: 'Atlas Model Railroad' represents the New Jersey manufacturing facility for Atlas brand model railroad products. Atlas also imported European made models in their early years and those items will be noted as having manufacturers set appropriately. In the 1990s Atlas moved all their toolings to China.