I have 3 EL hoppers coming from an eBay sale and I went to the Fallen Flags site to do a bit of research. I noticed that all the 33000 series 40'-7" triple hoppers seem to have the end ribs painted yellow. The models don't have this detail and I wondered if this was something added by Conrail or did the EL do it? What was the purpose? One example, taken 6/78 is at
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bottom line question is, were these ribs likely yellow in 1976? The above image also brings up the quetion about the rim around the top of the car and the sill strip along the bottom end of the ribs. One could infer from this particular image that these features were also painted yellow.