Replacing an AF Atlantic trailing truck

[Timboy]

 

[arkady]

stebbycentral

My "problem" as a collector of American Flyer is that I keep looking at the hardware from the standpoint of a lifetime model builder, and see ways to "improve" it in manners that many AF collectors would probably find sacrilegious.

After about forty years of scale modeling, I am the same way. I have a hard time looking at the best of the AF equipment as "toy trains," the way I do Lionel.

There had been discussions on the C&TT forums about adapting the K-5 trailing truck to the various models of the Atlantic. But I was not aware that anybody had actually attempted it.

That was me. And I did.

The major obstacle to such a modification is that on the K-5 the trailing truck is attached to the rear of the frame, while a separate drawbar between the locomotive and tender attaches to a fixture on the back of the locomotive shell. On the Atlantic the drawbar and the mounting for the rear truck are one and the same. Looking at the two components I became convinced that it would be possible to integrate them into one unit.

I approached the problem from a different perspective. I fabricated a new drawbar from brass stock and attached it to the tender only. It engages a (fabricated) post on the bottom of the locomotive cab, and has two holes: one for AF tinplate curves and a closer one for display or more scale-like curves.

It is then necessary to remove some material from the trailing truck frame in order to properly align the wheels on the track.

I didn't have that problem. There was a bit of casting flash on the truck that needed to be filed down to make it fit properly, but that was all.

With the material removed it is simply a matter of reassembling the locomotive, sandwiching the tender drawbar between the locomotive frame and the truck.

Again, I didn't take that route. My new brass tender-mounted drawbar engages a post on the bottom of the cab, and can be lifted on or off when needed.

And in case anyone's wondering, this Reading 302 is one of two locomotives I bought years ago, that had been badly repainted. I couldn't make it like new again, so I at least did the painting properly, and made the mechanical modifications at the same time. Nothing that I did is mechanically irreversible.

And, as a scale modeler's note, the K5 trailing truck isn't quite prototypical for the Reading P5/P7 (the Reading used spoked wheels on the trailing trucks of those Atlantics), but it at least looks a lot better than the toylike exposed wheels that AF for some reason used on the 302. And it's a fairly close match to the trailing trucks used on some of their larger locomotives. There are probably more correct trucks available somewhere, but I wanted to stick with original AF parts.

I don't know how to post pictures here, so I put a couple of them on photobucket:

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/ad165/jiw2/IMGP0001_small.jpg

http://i932.photobucket.com/albums/ad165/jiw2/IMGP0005_small.jpg

[Sturgeon-Phish]

Neat idea, looks good.

Jim

[stebbycentral]

My "problem" as a collector of American Flyer is that I keep looking at the hardware from the standpoint of a lifetime model builder, and see ways to "improve" it in manners that many AF collectors would probably find sacrilegious.

There had been discussions on the C&TT forums about adapting the K-5 trailing truck to the various models of the Atlantic. But I was not aware that anybody had actually attempted it. The major obstacle to such a modification is that on the K-5 the trailing truck is attached to the rear of the frame, while a separate drawbar between the locomotive and tender attaches to a fixture on the back of the locomotive shell. On the Atlantic the drawbar and the mounting for the rear truck are one and the same. Looking at the two components I became convinced that it would be possible to integrate them into one unit.

After having purchased an aftermarket trailing truck on eBay, I began by removing the existing wheel set from the tender drawbar. I did so by simply drilling out the rivet that connects them.

It is then necessary to remove some material from the trailing truck frame in order to properly align the wheels on the track. Using a cutting disk in my motor tool, I cut a slot in the top of the bar that runs across the back of the truck to clear the tender drawbar.

After test fitting the assembly to the locomotive frame I determined it would also be necessary to remove some material from the pivot point on the front of the tuck. The depth of the cut there is exactly the thickness of the drawbar, and enough material needs to be removed so that the two mounting holes line up correctly.

With the material removed it is simply a matter of reassembling the locomotive, sandwiching the tender drawbar between the locomotive frame and the truck. I considered gluing the truck to the drawbar, but upon due consideration concluded that it is probably better for tracking if the two can move independently. The result of this simple conversion is a vastly improved profile, in my opinion. The primary drawback is that should you desire to return the locomotive to its vintage configuration, it would be necessary to completely replace the tender’s drawbar and wheel set.