I recently realized that many of my Athearn 50' plug door boxcars should have extended draft gear chassis. Is there a rule of thumb for which cars should and should'nt have this feature? I want to be as prototypical as possible as these cars are nicely weathered and detailed for the railroad. Thanks
Jim Norton
Huntsville, AL
In checking, I see that Athearn offers cars with cushioned underframes in their Genesis line. Kadee brought out a series of 50' cars with cushioned underframes. If you have existing cars, I would add the Wathers Cushion Car coupler pockets to the cars that say "cushion underframe" or words to that effect. I added them to a Accurail 50' combination door box car. It was lettered "cushion underframe" but didn't have one. Now it does. The Walthers part # is 920-2311. There are enough parts to equip 4 cars. Adding angle cock and air hoses helps the illusion.
I have ended up using the coupler pockers Kadee makes for converting Rivarossi passenger car trucks. They can be attached directly to the car underframe and represent cushioned draft gear boxes quite nicely. I always find Kadee couplers work best in Kadee boxes.
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I only put them on cars lettered "cushioned", so in 1954, that is not very many.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Try finding similar cars on sites like http://rr-fallenflags.org/ , http://www.railcarphotos.com/ , http://freight.railfan.ca/ or http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/railroadList.aspx . You may not find an exact match for the Athearn car, but you can get a general idea of the types of cars that most likely should have extended draft gear, and the paint schemes typically associated with cushion underframes.
Here's one example. The Athearn car isn't an especially good match, but the choice of paint scheme was based on prototypes with roughly similar sides.
The paint scheme on the model is a strong hint the car should have extended draft gear, and the prototypes that inspired it clearly had this detail.
A lot of cars from other manufacturers (Accurail and Intermountain among current ones especially) should have the same basic type of extended draft gear. The rest of the underframe is likely to still be incorrect, but at least you can represent the spaced-out look between cars just by adding draft gear from Moloco or Walthers.
Rob Spangler
It is probably a safe bet that auto parts cars and boxcars and reefers with load restraints (XL, XLI, RBL, RPL) have cushioned underframes (but maybe not). Other than that there really isn't a rule of thumb (unless the car has some type of slogan on it). You will just have to research the prototype. Also different cushion underframes look different, so that will also take research.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Thanks everyone. It does indeed appear that all Athearn plug doors, with the exception of some early paint scheme reefers, have prototypes with the extended draft gear. I have yet to find a prototype plug door from the era with standard draft gear. The good news is the cars do look much better with the extended couplers. The bad news is I have about 30 cars which research has proven need the modification! I can't believe I have missed this through the years!
jimnorton I recently realized that many of my Athearn 50' plug door boxcars should have extended draft gear chassis. Is there a rule of thumb for which cars should and should'nt have this feature? I want to be as prototypical as possible as these cars are nicely weathered and detailed for the railroad. Thanks
Cal Scale makes exactly what you need:
Item 190-301
http://www.bowser-trains.com/history/hocalscalefreightcar.html
Sheldon
When MR reviewed the then-new Athearn cushion-frame (smooth side) 50' plug door boxcars in September 1965 MR they noted the lack of extension of the coupler pockets - and in that very same issue they reviewed the new Cal Scale #301 Hydra-cushion underframe kit, with 23 highly detailed plastic castings making it up, intended to fit Athearn, Model Die Casting and the Silver Streak "Golden Spike" series of cars. The price was $1. (The Athearn kit itself was $1.98.) The Cal Scale cushion underframe has more to it, in other words, than just coupler pockets that stick out.
By the way that review also noted that all the brake fittings on the frame are backwards, caused by reading plans (which are looking down from above) as if they were drawings, looking up from below. For many years those of us who assembled Athearn blue box kits got accustomed to snipping off the brake parts and re-cementing them correctly, sometime adding the necessary piping, if not the rodding. That was in addition to automatically tossing the horn hook couplers.
The Athearn 50' vertical ribbed boxcar and reefer plug door kits were reviewed in May 1968 MR (which noted that the cars were so easy to assemble that they were hardly "kits" in the [then] normal sense of the word). Still $1.98, and again the review noted that as the cars came the coupler pockets failed to extend, and they recommended the Cal Scale retro fit kit - the same one Sheldon recommended above.
IN ALL CASES the reviews noted that the numbers on the Athearn cars reviewed were wrong.
Dave Nelson
Idea... My Athearn 57' Mecanical Refrigerated Boxcar has extended draft gear. If you can find a bunch of these broken in a discount bin, cut the center few feet out of the underframe, and it might fit on the 50 foot cars.
Modified a few of the Athearn cars. The RF&P car has a Details West underframe which fits perfectly. The other two cars are modified by cutting the draft gear off and reattaching it as extended. Thanks for all the information! Now, I have about 30 more cars to do! These cars look so much better modified.
Those Athearn underframes have a weak point where the coupler box meets the rest of the underframe. Also, the thickness at the ends looks too small. I would use something better.
Jim, not sure how you extended or reattached the original coupler pockets, but as others have suggested I would have concerns about strength. The Cal Scale set has a correctly detailed coupler pocket that attaches to the original coupler pocket.
I think I have the strength issue worked out. In the photo below I am holding the car up by its coupler. I have added a shim to give the coupler pocket a flat surface to be glued to. In addition, note the small dot behind the coupler box. Thats a small hole with fine piece of wire going through the cut off frame piece and into the floor of the car. For a failure to occur the wire would have to shear.