Choices

There are any number of choices.  Exact Rail and Tangent Scale Models make gondolas that would have been seen on the rails in the 70s and 80s.  

Like all rail cars, different types of gondola's would have been assigned depending on the load hauled.  For example, you are probably not going to see a "new" 65 foot mill gondola assigned to hauling scrap.  

Joe

lots of choices

Any gondola

You can update any gondola to 1970's up to present day service for the most part by replacing the friction bearing trucks with roller bearing trucks.  

My 2 cents!

bad advice

Rapido:

Rapido:

E&C/LBF gons

shorter gons

My modeling focus is similar

My modeling focus is similar to the original poster and I've taken an interest in trying to find correct gondolas for late 1970's thur early 1980's as well.  Prior to about 10 years ago, choices were much fewer than today.  Also, it was harder to get information as less was available in the web so I relied on magazine articles in magazines like Modelrailroading and Rail Model Journal which did a lot of great articles and reviews.

I discovered back then that gondola's have been built in so many different styles and types and versions, that it was a challenge for a model manufacturer to offer a gondola that was correct for 2 or more road names and for the period of interest 1970's and 1980's. 

Sure, there were the USRA gondolas like those made by Proto 2000 which manyh more railroads had, and those are very nice by the way and some still in operation by the end of the 1970's.  So it's good to have some of those on the layout - but my guess is they thinning down by that date having been manufactured in the 1940's and would be pretty worn out by then.

There were articles about the Watlhers 53' and 65' and E&C shops 53' and 65' gondlos'.  From memory:

Walthers 53' kit gondola (offered in RTR form now) - only correct for a class of Southern Pacific gondolas.  Close to D&RGW class but rib spacing is not an exact match on the middle of the sides.

Walthers 53' kit corrugated side gondola - article didn't find any exact matches.

Walthers 65' kit gondola (offered in RTR form now) - correct for D&RGW and BN classes only according to article.

E&C Shops 53' corrugated side gondola - exact match for a class of Missouri Pacific gondolas and also correct for UP repaints.  All others are at best, stand-in's.

MDC's 53' gondola is correct for Rail Gon I believe - not sure of other road names.

In the last ten years, a lot of new gondola options have been added by ExactRail and Tangent.  Some are too modern for late 1970's and early 1980's from ExactRail, but here are some good ones:

- Gunderson 2420 correct for G-100-7 SP, but not all road names offered had them - be careful if that matters

- G-100-22 SP 65' gondola - only offered in SP - very nice and accurate and now sold out.

- Thrall 2422 15 panel gondola - check road names for correctness.  Good visual match for Rock Island and repainted into CR.

- Greenville 65' gondola

Also see Tangent for a lot of very nice gondolas. 

http://www.tangentscalemodels.com/view-buy-models/

Tagent has a lot less fantasy models than other brands although they have done a few alternerate reality paint schemes based on customer demain, and by fantasy, I mean models painted for railroads that never had that precise freight car.  Highly recommend the PRR G43 series - I've picked up a PRR and a PC version for my 1980 +/- focus.  There was a lot of them and some still in PRR paint into the 1980's as well.

Walthers has offered some newer tool gondolas that differ from their original kit 53 and 65 foot gondolas.  I have compared them with my D&RGW cars and they are not exact, but close stand-in's based on thickness of the upper chord.  I've noticed Walthers offering a series of corrugated gondolas that look a bit like the E&C and haven't researched their origin or accuracy yet.

It's not that difficult to find HO gondola models which are good for the late 1970's and early 1980's, the hard part is finding which are close matches to real gondolas because many models are painted for railroads that never owned them.  This is true for ExactRail too.  That shorty Gunderson 2420 is painted for roads that never had them so you have to do your homework if correctness matters.

Not bad advice

Thank you for offending my ignorance of accuracy!  Hevean forbid that I put roller bearing wheels on any rolling stock that's not up your standards!

People need to remember that these are in the basic sense TOYS!  

I have probably been modeling longer that you have been on earth!

Rant over!

If older gondola's didn't

If older gondola's didn't really get roller bearing trucks by the late 1970's, thats an interesting and useful piece of information.  Personally I find things like that useful and it adds depth to my knowledge.  Having a better understanding and being able to model history at a certain time frame make me enjoy my "toy" alot more.  YMMV of course.

Instead of opening boxes, why

Instead of opening boxes, why not build the car you want out of plastic? One of the guys in my club has been building some rather nice generic models out of for rent signs made from styrene. He gets them quite cheap. Add couplers trucks and wheels and a few detail parts and one can have a model for a fraction of what the ready to disassemble models are going for. Plus you get to build it. Now if the op has a set of photos and some data on the cars it should not be too tough to go from generic to specific model. I have some photos of my friend Bob's models on my club blog and more to come shortly.

I happen to enjoy building things so these typs of projects are things I like doing. If you do not desire to build please ignore my post. Also there might be some kits that would be of interest from the resin kit makers and I suspect you will not need to throw parts from those kits away, also I think intermountain might have something in kit form that could need decalls and paint. I am not positive on your era for models as I do not model past 1959 so my research on those areas is mighty slim. Rails were removed from the area I am interested in in the 80s and I have no interest in modeling a walking trail.

Instead of opening boxes, why

Easy answer, not enough time.  Same answer as to why RTR has become pervasively popular for the past 15+ years.  Working full-time and a endless honey-do list after buying a fixer-upper home doesn't leave me much time right now - and there is a layout to plan and build after the fixerupper stuff is mostly done and the basement is drywalled and finished.  You get the idea.

I'm not afraid of building kits; I've built a good number of Intermountain and Proto 2000 level kits along with those easier, but I don't have enough time to build up the fleet I need out detailed of kits or out of plastic.  Maybe when I'm retired. 

And to get back on topic, here is a Life Like Proto 2000 USRA gondola I built from the kit, lots of tiny parts and brake line, grab iron details - nice model:

"they're all toys" is not a defense

a couple more models

Dear scott I did read the

Dear scott I did read the post, it did not specify RTR, kit or scratch.

I have copied it for ease of others to read. As far as I can tell kits, ready to disassemble, and scratch are all available if the right models can be found. If scratch building a model it is definately available. 

Have a nice day, I have a project to get back to.

pressing "1" for English

Okay, shut it down.

Let's get back answering the original poster, shall we?

I have an ExactRail Thrall 2743, but with an entry date of 1995 they are too new.

The Atlas.. .is the same prototype.

The Atlas Trainman Evans gondola might fit the bill - anyone have more data on it? Being a Trainman product, it will doubtless have some non-prototypical paint schemes, but there is usually a solid prototype of the model itself. 

The 52'6" corrugated side gondola in InterMountain's Value line appears to be a good fit. I think I can discount the "new" date of 1995 on one of them, the rest I looked at were from the 70s and '83.

The 52'6" corrugated side

From what I understand, IMRC bought what once was E&C assets (went through a couple more names after that) and are producing cars into the Value Line.  That corrugated gondola, I believe, is the same car reviewed in RMJ or MRG magazine back in the 1990's and it was identified by the author as only being a match for aMissouri Pacific class.  UP took over MP and many of those gondolas were repainted or rebadged in UP so that would be correct also.  Other road names are probably fantasy (full disclosure).

Thank you Jeff

As one can see there is one poster here on this thread that has only ONE way of doing things!  Glad I wasn't the only one bashed on.  I don't feel so bad now.

Thanks

Thank you everyone who gave info linking models to prototypes. Really appreciate the time and effort. I'm saving all of your posts.

more reading

"The OP wants accuracy. You

  That's not all there s to it  unless you have a very narrow minded definition of "correct". For many modelers correct is something that looks plausible for the time period so the suggestion of updating an older gon with roller bearings makes good sense. Not many folks know or care if a model is exactly accurate for a given railroad or era, many model railroads that never existed except in their chosen scale so they are more interested in the generic. Think of it as art versus photography, or impressionism versus realism. I find it quite funny when people worry about the correctness of something they don't already know about, seems like they'd be more interested in the correctness of things they are familar with? I can think of nothing more boring than trying to figure out what kind of every type of freight car was correct for every road and era, sounds like a huge waste of hobby time that could be better applied to building something more obvious to the average viewer?.....DaveB

That's not all there s to it 

"very narrow minded definition of "correct".'

You make it sound like a bad thing.  C'mon now.  Be nice or lets all just have a good old fashioned flame war? 

To be fair, correct to many of us means the freight car looks like a real freight car.  I've always had somewhat of an eye for detail, and mind you I'm not taking about molecular detail, rivits and all the cubic foot date perfectly matching in the data boxes on the sides of the car.  No, I'm talking about same length, number of ribs, matching side sill, style of door etc.  You can look at the model next to the real thing and say, yeah, thats the same gondola or box car.  Pretty major stuff.

Even back in the early 1990's as a more or less noob model train fan I picked up a copy of Jim Eagers Color Guide to Rio Grande Freight and Passenger equipment and began checking models against the prototype photos.  Good news is I've been able to find a lot of models which are a "close match".  These days there are a good many models that can be held up to a real model and match so with just a little effort, you can build a fleet so you can make model freight trains that look like a real freight train you saw.  Very cool.   

Of course each person can model in ways that they want, and if thats the case, you can buy any model that has a road name which would have been plausible for a time period, whether or not it existed in real life and be happy.  Great.  As many of us know, manufacturers have been offering quasi plausible(looks about right) models for the past 60 years - most of your MDC, Athearn, Accurail, and many others.  If impressionism is your goal, most restrictions are off and you can mix and match - really there is no limit - from Thomas the tank to things closer to reality and everything in between.  Even Claude Monet would be happy.

Dave.  Have pity on people like me who have gone for decades without a layout.  What do you do when you don't have a space for a layout.  You do BORING things like build a fleet of models - you have time to do some research and go COOL, I found another model thats not a fantasy model.  Not everyone is blessed with space to build a layout which keeps them so busy that they find studying models to be boring.

Look, we are, as a lot, a bunch of grumpy old men (to be frank) who like to play with trains in different ways.  There is nothing constructive in disparaging something the is fun to someone else.   Is it fair for me to point out, hey -you have a bunch of fantasy models on your layout?  Whats the matter with you?  No.  Just like it's not really nice to say something I like is boring.  I find sports boring, but lots of people I know love sports and eat/drink it all the time.  I'm not going to go around telling them sports is boring - or eventually I might get a knuckle sandwich. 

For some of us, finding models that actually look like a real freight car and you can hold it up and it matches, ot me thats really cool.  And yes, there are a lot of people who are really into that kind of thing - thats part of the "fun".  Some how we all got to get along and not dis what someone else likes.

Model railroading for many is imitating real life in model form.  Some are into operations and could care less if a freight car they are using is realistic in that it looks like a real freight car.  Others like to have models that are to a higher fidelity and run them too.  Obviously YMMV

Boring

Your opinion. Personally I'm fascinated by the details and variations of railway equipment and building appropriate fleets of cars.

With access to a few key resources like old copies of equipment registers you can easily find out if a particular number series was actually in service in a particular year, and the internet has made researching prototypes for freight cars so much better now with some of the photo gallery sites out there like rr-fallenflags.org, rrpicturearchives.net, railcarphotos.com and canadianfreightcargallery.ca