Frieght Trucks ..Which type to use?

[Anonymous]

I am in the process of trying to decide which brand and style of truck to use on my MRR.

I am modelling the Chessie System and Santa Fe as if they still existed and have modernised Thier older rolling stock. I am limited to a maximum of 50 foot rolling stock at the moment and 4 axle Locomotives.

What I am wondering is would it make sense to update to the newer 3 Spring Roller Bearing truck style or to stick with the older Bettendorf 2 Spring style trucks.

And also which brand of metal replacement truck would be reccomended. I am currently looking at Kadee.

One other question I have is about the Coal Train I plan to model using Undecorated Athearn Blue Box Hopper Cars. From What I have seen of them they may be rather difficult to body mount the draft boxes for the Kadee Couplers. Is it suggested to get the Talgo Trucks for this purpose or to make the car somewhat less realistic and modify it to work with the body mount draft boxes. It seems the Talgo setup would be the easier solution but I am worried that thay may cause the wheels to rid over the rails if I put too much strain on the train.

[Anonymous]

Let the arguments begin... I as a railfan and Modeler have found that unless a car has be wrecked the trucks that came on it stay on it till it's scrapped. I still today see older cars with brass bushings running on the tracks. So the truck that came on kits RTR is correct. I thought all Athern Blue boxs will accept #5 kadee. If not you can buy Talgo adapters from Kadee and use them with kadees though I found I like using McHenrys with metal spings in talgos with Kadee talgo adapters. Talgos have problems backing more than pulling, in fact they may be superior to body mounts when pulling. FRED

[Anonymous]

Well the primary reason I wi***o change to new trucks is for the spring suspension they provide. I know it is probably overkill but I am using sectional track and I like the idea of having the springs to act as shock absorbers for all those joints.

I do not have the time really to mess with laying flex track nor the resources monitarily for it and I want something other than the plain black plastic trucks on my rolling stock that can be easily converted to aftermarket trucks.

The reasoning for the newer style trucks is supposedly they are supposed to be running the newer trucks as of 1993 from what I have been reading for safety reasons or something. That and they are the only 100 ton truck with three springs. The 70 ton versions have 2 springs however.

[nfmisso]

Use the trucks that best match your prototypes - you will end up with a variety.

Keep in mind, different HO trucks were designed for different axle lengths. Kadee axles are longer, and may bind. Intermountain are a bit short, and LL P2K shorter still. NWSL offers three different axle lengths, and ReBoxx offers many.

70 ton trucks generally have 33" diameter wheels, 100 ton trucks generally have 36" wheels.

Do NOT go with TALGO.

Get a Kadee height guage (or equivalent). Use Kadee 20, 30 or 40 series couplers where #5's are too low or too high. Read and follow the instructions that come with the height guage.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the replies so far. I am new to being this serious in the hobby and I am wanting to get opinions of the more experienced modelers out there.

I like the looks of the Kadee Trucks so far that and I also prefer to try and keep the number of brands I use to a minimum so that I don't have to keep searching for new suppliers of things if one goes out of business or the local LHS's stop carrying a line of something. Kadee's are certainly a defacto standard in MRR so I would think they would be around for a pretty good time to come.

I am not as concerned with the absolute best rolling wheelsets out there so I will probably go with Kadee trucks and wheelsets along with the couplers once I can afford to do this conversion.

The main reason I am considering the newer style trucks is that the local railroad in my area uses them almost exclusively and I like the look of them a little better than the bettendorf truck to be honest. I know this isn't prototypical by any means but I am definitely not a prototypical modeler. I do not have the patience as of yet to go that far into the detail work on my models and I want to have some good reliable rolling stock. The default plastic wheels just dont cut it on some of my lower quality stuff.

I am more than likely going to end up with mostly Athearn equipment due to the cost constraints I am dealing with. I have a couple of NYC reefers I bought second hand made by athearn and a GP 35 and I am quite p[leased with them thus far. These will be the first conversion cars I do and then I will work on my lower quality Bachmann and Life Like stuff. (Not Spectrum or P2K).

[BR60103]

Unless things have greatly improved in the spring department, having sprung trucks in HO isn't noticeably better than gluing or soldering the whole thing solid. It takes a very heavy car to make a truck operate.

[Anonymous]

I would just use the stock Athearn trucks, with Intermountain metal wheels. They roll much better, And the clickety-clack you just can't get with plastic wheelsets. I have found that sprung trucks are more prone to derail than rigid trucks.
Kato, Atlas and P2K make very nice replacement trucks, if that is what you want to do.
I would use Kadee no. 58 if I was starting a fleet today. Much nicer looking than no. 5, and works just as well. I feel McHenry is just not durable enough.
The real railroads run virtually all roller bearing trucks these days. Law says that friction bearing are not allowed in interchage service. On your model pike, you can do what you want. Stock trucks are fine, just as long as you have metal wheels.
On the club layout I can run a 60+ car train, all my own cars, without a problem. Most other members, and the club owned cars, have problems getting 20 cars around.

To summarize:
Use Kadee couplers, making sure they are at correct height, trip pin clears the gauge.
Metal wheelsets, I have used Intermountain, P2K, stock Atlas with good results.

[wp8thsub]

"...which brand and style of truck to use..."

If you haven't done so, look through the freight car truck article in the December 2003 MR. If you really like the Kadee trucks, go with them as that's a personal decision. As far as I'm concerned the springs on the Kadee (and most other HO) sprung trucks look so flimsy they don't really capture the look of real trucks. Plastic HO trucks with the springs cast on usually look better to me and they're cheaper too. Replacement wheelsets from Kadee, Intermountain and JayBee are pretty readily available and will fit in most plastic trucks (including Athearn) to upgrade their rolling qualities. Many of those cheap trucks on your cars are probably pretty accurate but could use better wheelsets. If you standardize on one brand of wheels rolling stock performance will be very predictable.

Remember the laws of physics don't scale down and you're not going to get an appreciable difference in tracking with sprung trucks. A scale weight car would weigh the prototype weight divided by 87 cubed, which isn't much; that type of mass doesn't make the springs function over rough track. I'm not trying to talk you out of the sprung trucks if you like them, but they're expensive and if you're using them for other than aesthetic reasons you probably won't get what you're hoping for.

"I am modelling the Chessie System and Santa Fe as if they still existed and have modernised Thier older rolling stock."

If you are doing this you'll have to decide just how much disbelief you can suspend. The ICC 40 year underframe rule will condemn nearly any car once it hits 40 years old even if it's been rehabbed. Very few of the older solid bearing trucks even survived into the era I'm modeling in the late '70s - early '80s and those that did typically had the original bearings swapped out for roller bearing retrofits. Usually the journal lids were removed; somebody (Kato?) had a model of this truck in HO. If you see a solid bearing truck today it can't legally be in interchange service.

"One other question I have is about the Coal Train I plan to model using Undecorated Athearn Blue Box Hopper Cars. From What I have seen of them they may be rather difficult to body mount the draft boxes for the Kadee Couplers. Is it suggested to get the Talgo Trucks for this purpose..."

Due to tracking issues I'd avoid the talgo coupler setup. Most Kadee couplers drop right into Athearn draft gear boxes so I'm not sure why you'd want to change out the stock boxes unless you were switching to smaller size scale draft gear.

[Anonymous]

Well Unfirtunately most of my rolling stock at the moment is either the cheap Life Like or Bachmann variety with a few exceptions.

I have some better Bachmann SS and Athearn things coming via Ebay finds to slowly add to this though and I am working on collecting up as many blue box kits as I can afford when I can get them.

Due to this a lot of these cars have the really bad Talgo snap on trucks and little or no surface that I can find to mount a Kadee coupler box to on the fram that would look right. That was the main reason for the possibility of Talgo style. This is promarily a concern on hopper cars with a flimsy end frame like the Bachmann's. The newer stuff usually has the body mount coupler or can have one mounted.

As for the sprung trucks, I actually mounted a set of sprung trucks that were on a Coal Car I picked up used at the LHS onto one of my Athearn cars I had bought already assembled and it helped greatly in the car wobble department. Most of my rolling stock has a bit of excessive side to side travel and the sprung trucks helped it out. It also slightly reduced the loud clickety Clack of the metal wheels on that car to a more tolerable level. It was wuite loud before since I use EZ Track for my track and it seems to amplify the noise a bit even sitting on a carpeted floor.

Once I get the 4x8 plywood to actually get started on my layout I am going to being converting My rollng stock to metal wheelsets, more than likely P2K's since that is what the local Hobby SHop carries. I was wanting smooth backed wheels but all he has are the ribbed back ones. If I get the Kadee trucks they come with smooth backed wheels but they do not specify if they are metal or not on the Kadee sight, they only say non- magentic.

All in all I am for the most part still shopping around for better detail parts than the stock plastic molded ones on my cheaper rolling stock. The Athearn trucks look pretty good out of the box but some of the others look down right cheesy by comparison and that was what prompted this discussion. I want consistency among my rolling stock or at least as much as I can get considering the wide range of quality.

[Jetrock]

The difference might not be in the springing of the trucks (the springs on an HO scale truck are decorative, not functional) but in fact in the quality of the item. Figure just about any trucks you put under an old El Cheapo railroad show buy is going to improve the ride, at least a bit.

Have you tried replacing the wheels? A good set of wheels, in gauge, can make quite a difference all by themselves.

[Anonymous]

You are probably right in all honesty.

I went to the local LHS to get some #5 Kadees and a new DC power supply.

Well I got one pack of #5's just top give them a shot, I also picked up a Chessie B&O Caboose Kit and a Chessie Gondola kit as well as a set of Kadee Bettendorf Trucks (Only set of metal trucks they had in stock)

I must say I am impressed with the quality of these trucks and they do indeed come with Kadee metal wheelsets in them. I put them on the caboose an gave her a little push on my test track which is a loop with 18 inch radius curves. It went all the way around the 180 and halfway down the straightaway.

It The sprung trucks do indeed soften the noisse a little bit though My only other car with metal wheels is twice as loud. But I am definitely sold on Knuckle couplers, Kadee all the way now.

[IRONROOSTER]

When I was in HO, I found the old Central Valley trucks were the best - sprung and equalized. They would track over rough track where others would derail.
Enjoy
Paul

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by IRONROOSTER

When I was in HO, I found the old Central Valley trucks were the best - sprung and equalized. They would track over rough track where others would derail.
Enjoy
Paul

That has been my deciding factor with going with sprung trucks actually. The sectional track I am using is prone to occasional misalignment since it is not permanently mounted to anything right now. The sprung trucks I have on my two new Athearn cars allow me to go up to full throttle forwards or reverse without any attempts to derail due to misalignment of the track joints.

All in all I think the bettendorf truck is more than I need really. And why spend almost another dollar per pair of trucks for the three spring roller bearing trucks when I dont really need them. I do like the metal trucks best though,