E&C Shops - 858 - Gondola, 65 Foot, Mill - Gondola Connection - 3139

Model Information: E&C shops originally designed this tooling. It was later acquired by LBF and then by Hubert's and as of recently by InterMountain. Cars come factory equipped with Micro-Trains® trucks/couplers and are available with a variety of different loads. Examples can be found with E&C, LBF and Hubert's branding. InterMountain (as of 4/2019) has not yet produced a release though they definitely now have possession of the molds.

Prototype History: Generally used to haul scrap metal and loose bulk materials, gondola cars vary in length and side heights. Mill Gondola cars are more commonly used for high-density commodities and have a flat bottom while regular Gondola cars are most commonly used for coal or crushed aggregates and can have a flat or tub bottom configuration.

Steel-sided 65' mill gondolas date back to at least the 1940s, however specialized rib-sided "mill" gondolas are a relatively modern design. These cars are intended for use with the steel trade, and they are used to transport just about anything that can be loaded using an overheard crane. They date from the 1970s forward.

Road Name History: CRLE was the original reporting mark for just over 500 of these gondolas (CRLE 3000-3504). They were pretty widely dispersed after that, many to NS, and some to IMRL/ICE, CHTT, among others.

CHTT 286200-286249 are the ex-CRLE "gondola connection" cars you're referring to. Their AEI tags were prepared in July 1997, so they probably began to appear soon after that. These cars are ex-CRLE 3300-3349; observations support the probability that they were renumbered in order.

Brand/Importer Information: E&C Shops made decent and inexpensive Wood Chip Cars and Coalporters (their first offerings). They were genius because they made mass produced multiple road numbers available at the same time, something that the big guys are just now embracing after years of cycles of watching for announcements and checking the ones you already have. At the time and at least 10 years beyond it was nice to grab a dozen BN coalporters with different numbers in a box and go. Kudos to Fred Becker and Hubert for trying something different and cutting edge. Their Bethgons were less expensive and more detailed than later big-name productions.