Happy Father's Day to all.
I've decided to give an Aristo GP40 a try; I'm leaning towards one of USA's offerings for a caboose. Can anyone shed some light on how difficult it is to mount Kadee 830's or 789's on a USA Trains caboose?
Most of my roster is made up of Accucraft rolling stock plus a few Bachmann, so this is new territory to me. My daughter is more facinated by the bright colors of the modern diesels than her Dad's Narrow Gauge stuff, so we decided to try something new. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Back to the BBQ. Hope all of you have a great weekend.
Jon
I believe most USA cars have mounting pads for kadees built in. I really like USAT cabooses but I don't use kadees. I have one woodside and two bay windows
-Brian
My USA Bay Window, the frame molding ends at the door with a separate (see through) step and platform molding to the end of the car. No holes for Kadees, but it should be easy to adapt. The same for my 2 "woodside" cabooses.
All MTH Railking cars come with knuckle coulpers (and Hook & Loop in the box) but have a Kadee mounting pad, shims, and instructions to add your Kadees.
Don U. TCA 73-5735
There really was not enough room for 830's on my extended vision USAT caboose. I believe I used an 835, but I also swapped out the carbon brush pickups for LGB ball bearing wheels. As I remember, these were slightly larger in diameter, which of course changed the mounting pad height. I think it took a thin styrene shim to get the coupler at the right height.
Regards, Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
Jon,
I have 2 of the USA caboose, what I did was to glue some plastic to the frame about 1/8" thick.
Then screwed 789 kadees to that. It works very well. Oh I painted the plastic to match the frame.
Thanks guys, for all the input. Don- just so I have the right mental picture, is the plastic shim glued under the "diamond plate" flooring?
I was able to examine a USA Extended Vision caboose yesterday. Great looking product....that "diamond plate" flooring looks to be the problem as far as mounting goes. My other thought is to wait and see if the new Center Cuploa caboose has a mounting pad for Kadee's; the drawing 's look like it may.
Here's what I did. I use a Kadee 820 but the same technique may work for an 830. I cut a plastic plate that I mounted to the 2 rails in the underframe of the caboose. I tapped the holes in the rails. I then mounted the Kadee to the plate by tapping the plastic plate. I've pushed and pulled a pretty sizable train with this arraingement without any problems. The thickness of the plate will be determined by the height of the coupler you want to mount. Thankfully styrene comes in many thicknesses so you just need to figure out how thick to make it for your railroad.
Hopefully the pictures will tell the story.
Brian B.
DT&I 1980ish
I did basically the same as DT&I, but used the 789 so it would go around 4 foot radius curves.
Hey Guys:
I'm really sorry its taken me so long to respond, my apologies. Thank you so much for all of the info! I will let you know how my caboose turns out; looks like a fun project.
Again, my sincere thanks to all.
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