6076 Lehigh Valley or Santa Fe

Production:  1961 - 1963

History
The 6076 Lehigh Valley and Santa Fe (ATSF) hoppers of the early 1960s had a brief appearance in the Lionel family. Neither roadname is common and each will require some time to locate. However, collector interest in these hoppers is minimal and prices are generally reasonably.

The Lehigh Valley was catalogued from 1961 to 1963. Sales were generally lackluster and in an effort to move unsold inventory, Lionel included this hopper in several uncatalogued sets extending into both 1964 and 1965!

The Santa Fe is an uncatalogued item from 1963 and 1964. This is one of a few postwar hoppers to have a road name other than Lehigh Valley.

All 6076 hoppers are part of the short hopper series and were produced only as two bay hoppers. This is in contrast to the larger quad hoppers which have four bays and are 1 1/2" longer.

Features
Standard features of the 6076 vary depending upon the variation. Below is a summary of each 6076 hopper:

• Lehigh Valley - unpainted red hopper with white lettering, usually two fixed couplers with arch-bar style trucks. The 6076 Lehigh Valley was also available with an unpainted gray or black molded shell.
• Santa Fe - unpainted gray hopper with black lettering. It generally has AAR trucks with any combination of operating or non-operating couplers. However, the AAR trucks were not always standard as this version does occasionally surface with arch-bar trucks or a combination of one arch-bar and one AAR truck! Talk about using whatever was available -- Lionel certainly employed this practice on the trucks for the 6076 Santa Fe hopper!

Additional Detail, Photos & Box Information
The length of the 6076 hopper is approximately 9 1/2" long (coupler to coupler).

Lehigh Valley - Available in either red (first photo above), black (second photo above) or gray. The black and gray are harder to find than the red version.

Santa Fe (Third photo above) - Harder to locate and more desirable than the Lehigh Valley.

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