I'm in the process of replacing plastic wheel sets on 55' Center Flow Hopper Cars. Is there a general rule for determinding which classification is associated with which car type??? In today's world, is there a Web Site that can provide such information to a modeler??? Thank You in advance for any/all assistance...
Respectfully Robert[Bob] E. Cronan
Are you replacing the trucks or just the wheels?
If you are replacing the trucks you should probably be using a roller bearing truck if it is a more modern car.
If you are just replacing the wheels and it is a 100 ton car, then you should use 36 inch diameter wheels. There are several companies that make replacement wheels.
One thing you can try is to search the various freight car photo sites for ideas on trucks under similar cars. Try http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ , http://www.railcarphotos.com/index.php? , http://freight.railfan.ca/ , and http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/railroadList.aspx . If you can't find a photo of a car of the type and number series of car you have on one of those, or a site more specfific to a particular road, you can take an educated guess. Familiarize yourself with the types of trucks common on cars like the ones you have and you'll get used to recognizing appropriate types.
A "55' Center Flow" is going to be a 100-ton car. It would almost certainly have roller bearing trucks (most likely with a 5' 10" wheelbase), and 36" wheels.
If you're dealing with Athearn blue box models of these cars, the trucks usually found in the kits work well with Kadee wheelsets or others with somewhat longer and/or thicker than normal axles. Intermountain or ExactRail wheelsets (or others with more typical lengths) work great in most HO trucks, but the axles are too short for many Athearn roller bearing trucks.
Rob Spangler
Good Morning Rob,
Thank You for your reply in regards to my post. If I might steal a moment of you time??? I went searching for a truck type for a Southern 19785 Plug Door Box Car this morning. I referenced your suggested links and I came across a great photo of the box car in question. The photo had a good image of the trucks. I then referenced a Model Railroader story that had photos of several different styles of trucks. I compared the two(2) photos and I think this box car has a set of 70-Ton ASF Ride Control trucks under it. Could you check me out and let me know your opinion??? Once again, Thanx for your assistance...
Robert[Bob] E. Cronan
pamelapetersonI went searching for a truck type for a Southern 19785 Plug Door Box Car this morning. ...I think this box car has a set of 70-Ton ASF Ride Control trucks under it.
I'm presuming the car in question is one of these from Athearn:
If so, note that Athearn essentially made up this car out of thin air. Southern did have some cars that were roughly similar (and only very roughly), but as far as I can tell not in this number series (I'm not an expert at all on the SOU roster, so somebody more knowledgeable can jump in).
This car's representative of those in this series, and differs in literally every detail from the Athearn kit (roof, ends, sides, doors...). The trucks on all the examples I looked at appeared to be Barber S-2 70-ton. The trucks packaged with most of the kits were Athearn's typical roller bearing types, which looked like something of a cross between Barber and ASF design features.
Given that it's pretty much a made-up car, I'd suggest going with the kit trucks if you have them, and add decent wheels that fit, or picking a roller bearing truck you like and just going with that.