2500 cars on O27

[lionelsoni]

This evening, I ran a train of 2500-type streamliners on my O27 layout for the first time ever.

I have over 60 years accumulated three complete ABBA sets of vertical-motor ATSF F3s, way more than I need.  And I amassed 12 different modern-era 2400-type red-stripe ATSF cars for them to pull.  But I haven't run them for years, after seeing how silly those greatly undersized cars looked behind the scale F3s.  So recently I sold the lot and found a train of 5 beat-up postwar 2500s with new modern trucks, to replace them.

I rewired the cars with 3-phase bridge rectifiers, so that either truck can power both lights without connecting the pickups together, and added capacitors to further reduce flicker.  Then I cut off the skirts between the trucks (which is why I didn't want anything close to pristine cars).  I also had to machine a round to break the sharp corners of the pickup rollers, which caught on the fat center rail of my O27 turnouts.

The train looks and runs great now.  I'm going to be on the lookout for a few more old cars to add to it.