GERN Industries Gibson Works...

[doctorwayne]

The two GERN covered hoppers shown in the first photo of this thread have been re-built and re-numbered. The re-building was mainly to replace the overly heavy cast-on grab irons and sill steps, but I also redid the hatches and outlet gates using parts from Bowser's nicely-done ACF covered hoppers. Since the MDC cars represented Pullman-Standard's PS-2, the new hybrid has been deemed a GERN corporate design, with features of both the PS-2 and ACF designs. Since the GERN design pre-dates that of the latter two companies, both of those companies pay royalties to GERN for the features they later opted to use.
GERN's cars were built by National Steel Car, in Hamilton, Ontario.
The re-numbering came about when GERN acquired additional cars from the now-moribund Niagara Peninsula RR, and shop forces discovered that their supply of the numeral "5" in the proper font had been almost exhausted.

Here's the two re-done originals...




...and the recent additions, simply patched-over for the new reporting marks and numbers:





Also done at the same shopping were these EG&E cars...





Wayne