Oh, Canada! Upgrading and Improving InterMountain’s HO Scale Canadian Hoppers

InterMountain’s HO scale Canadian cylindrical hoppers have been around for a long time, first as kits and later as ready to run models. These are nice cars based on a real prototype, and the newer versions have enhanced detail including photo etched walkways.

Unfortunately a lot of these cars suffered from poor trucks that tended to derail. Dan has a bunch of these, and he tried to run them in a train once, and it didn’t work out so well.

To remedy that, Dan has developed an upgrade program for these cars that address most of the issues and improve the appearance of these models.

In this episode of Model Building Tips, Dan shows how to:

Replace the troublesome stock trucks
Replace the couplers and adjust the height
Replace the breakageprone air hoses
Replace the clunky plastic crossover platform
And add prototypical uncoupling levers

These upgrades help these cars to perform as good as they look, and the cosmetic upgrades bring the models closer to modern detail standards.

The techniques in this video could apply to other models as well.

If you’ve got some HO scale Canadian hoppers or other cars that need upgrading, be sure to check out this video!

#train #modelrail #modelrailroader #railroad #modeltrains #hoscale #canada