Author Topic: Koppel Tipple Cars  (Read 1987 times)

Ted Miles

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Koppel Tipple Cars
« on: June 23, 2020, 04:07:34 PM »
Folks,
         My WW&F roster says the museum owns three Koppel tipple cars. Looking for more information about them, I found that Arthur Koppel & Company of of Chicago was the American subsidiary of Orenstein & Koppel in Germany prior to 1917. After the US entered the world War, the assets were seized and a new company Koppel Industrial Car & Equipment Company was created as a subsidiary of Pressed Steel Corporation. The market for narrow gauge equipment dried up and they went out of business about 1937.

The old newsletters report one or two cars came up from West Thompson, CT.
 And one of them came with the Brookeville loco from Robert Paine at South Wellfleet, Cape Cod. A later newsletter reports this one was built by Fairmont not Koppel.

I still wonder about what year the cars were built? Is any data cast into the steel frames?

Ted Miles, WW&F Member and narrow gauge fan 

   
« Last Edit: June 23, 2020, 04:42:12 PM by Ted Miles »

James Patten

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Re: Koppel Tipple Cars
« Reply #1 on: June 23, 2020, 08:01:35 PM »
Somewhere we got the tip car that Mike's using.  I think it came from the Ramsdells.  It believe it was the only functional tip car that came, the rest were chassis only.  I think there were 3 more of the chassis-only cars from the Ramsdells.  One of these was turned into the base for the spray car.  The rest are still chassis with nothing permanent attached.

We received 3 more tip cars from MNG, one forward/backward dumping, the rest side.  The younger guys (Bryce, James and Dan) have started a project for the forward/backward one, but I don't know what it is and I'm sure the project was put on hold for coronovirus.  According to my notes, another one was getting converted to take the backhoe attachment.  I don't know where that project is either.

Bob Holmes

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Re: Koppel Tipple Cars
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2020, 08:19:04 AM »
As I recall, the backhoe attachment was an unsuccessful experiment...