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Conrail Cyclopedia H42/H44 Cov Hoppers: Prototype Info The H42 and H44 are nearly exact duplicates. The H42 is a 3510 cuft car built by American Car & Foundry around 1963 and 1964. PRR purchased their H42's during October-December 1963. The EL purchased their 25 cars in October 1964. NYC also purchased the ACF CF3510 but I don't know the dates yet. These cars eventually found their way into Penn Central and Conrail, and some still survive today. From what I can tell, there are no variations between any of these roads' cars other than paint schemes, so the Atlas model should work fine for any of them. Conrail considers these cars to be 3500 cuft cars. Between 1964 and 1965 ACF built a variation of their 3510 using a 50 degree slope sheet instead of the typical 45 degree sheet. This resulted in a few inch increase in car length and an increase in capacity to 3700 cuft. The PRR purchased this model between August and September 1964 and assigned it the class H44. They were the only predecessor to purchase the CF3700. The main spotting difference between H42 and H44 covered hoppers, from what I can tell, is that the H42 has 11 roofwalf supports on the hopper section, while the H44 has 9. Paint Schemes: Conrail: There are three major H42/H44 CR paint schemes I know of: oxide with large logo, gray with medium-sized logo, and gray with very small logo. Sometimes placement of logo varies, as on CR 884690. Generally speaking, the large logo is the original CR paint scheme since 1976. The small logo scheme has been applied since at least 1986. The medium logo has been applied since at least the mid-80s as well. Predecessors: If you model the period from 1976 to the late 1980s, then you would find H42s and H44s running in original schemes from PRR, NYC, PC, and EL, along with various CR 'paint-outs.' By the late 1990s, however, the number of cars in original schemes has drastically dwindled. For example, in 1996 there were only two PRR H44s still in service. Check the photo of PRR 240397 for one of the survivors! Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Robert S. Waller. All rights reserved. Photos for personal use only. All rights reserved by original owner of image. Reproduction or redistribution in any form without express written permission is prohibited.