Large Scale Central

Odds and Ends

This past Monday, I finally got some time to do my hobbies, no chores, no “Honey dos”, no leaving town for work, just serious train playing. So I decided to get my latest acquisitions up to standard, and out on the railroad. As per the updated P&CS standards, revised late 2016, all new rolling stock is to have metal wheels, Kadee couplers and ball bearing inserts in the journals. And that is where I hit the first snag. In drilling out the journals on the USA show car trucks for the bearings, I got a tad aggressive and drilled clear through one of them.

(picture missing due to embarrassment)

Instead of wasting the truck side-frame, I went to my handy dandy secret weapon, JB Quick.

I carefully covered the hole in the journal, being careful to not let the JB get too far back into the hole and interfere with the axle or bearing.

Then, after it had mostly set up, I trimmed it flush with a hobby knife.

Then I coloured the gray JB weld with a Sharpie marker.

Then I added all the detail parts to the USA show cars. And there I hit the next “snag”.

In the drawings I have of boxcars and reefers of this type, the brake-wheel is usually around 18 inches ABOVE the roof-walk. The low brake-wheel on the USA cars has always bothered me. Now I could toss the perfectly good brass bake-wheel staff, But that would be a waste. So, I made an extension.

Its just a short piece of 1/16th brass rod, coloured with a Sharpie.

It fits at the bottom, between the bracket and holder, secured with a dab of Goop.

Then the USA brake-wheel/staff assembly is put in place, also secured with a dab of Goop.

Now that’s better. It looks like someday I will have to make a dozen of those for the cars already in service.

Then I moved onto the MTH car I bought. Oh no, I hit another snag. I cannot see anyway to add KaDees to the MTH truck.

After some head scratching, I decided to just replace the MTH trucks with USA trucks.

Here the car is sitting on one USA truck, and ne MTH truck, and then I found there was another snag. The wheel flanges in the USA truck were rubbing on a cross beam on the MTH car. So, with some hesitation, I modified the MTH car.

To disguise the ground down areas, I coloured them with my Sharpie too. You can also see the washer I put on the MTH car so the USA truck would swivel without snagging on the raised ribs on the MTH car’s bolster.

In retrospect I should have dug through my stash for the Piko trucks I know I have. The MTH car, and the Piko trucks are 1:32nd, where the USA truck is 1:24.

So now I have 3 more cars in my roster ready to run.

The 2 2017 ECLSTS show cars.

and the MTH Iron City reefer. Its funny but the Roberts meats car doesn’t say anywhere on the car that it was the show car for the 2017 ECLSTS. All of my other show cars are marked somewhere on the car that they are show cars. I wonder if that was an oversight, or an intentional omission.

When I went to run them I found that my LGB Mogul is DOA (Dead on it’s axles). Oh great! Another snag, and another project.

So I ran the new cars with my LGB Forney and Heartland bobber caboose.

I have to stop over some day when you have no chores, no “Honey dos”, no leaving town for work to play with your trains

(http://largescalecentral.com/FileSharing/user_5739/Shannon%20Car%20shops/rolling%20stock/staffexten2.jpg)

Hey … where is that sharpie… ( the silver screw on the coupler cover )

I put the Bachmann 92421 31.00 mm metal wheels on all of my freight cars and I think I’m happy. Would love to have Kadee body-mounts on all of the cars, but it’s too much of a hassle cutting up the bodies and under frames. So I guess I’ll have to settle for the ol’ unrealistic hook and loop couplers for now. It reminds me of HO when you had the standard unrealistic NMRA couplers that came with the cars and the first thing you did was convert to Kadee 5 & 10’s or whatever it was.

I think all of my LGB rolling stock came with the brass rod/shafts for the brake wheel. A few of my USA Train cars have them, but the older ones came with the plastic shafts and I don’t get too hung up on it, especially the height of the wheel. I’m fine with keeping them as original out of the box. I’d like to have brass rods on all of my cars though - they look better and remain nice and straight and less susceptible to breaking off, especially if the brake wheel is mounted prototypically higher.

Are those Kadee 831 or 906/907 truck-mounted couplers, David?

Mark, you are welcome, just call first.

Sean, yea I need to get the Sharpie to those screws. Colouring things black with a Sharpie marker is so much easier then using paint. I am so glad I “borrowed” that idea from…whoever I borrowed it from.

Michael, those are the KaDee 831 truck mounted, large offset couplers. For large scale truck mounts, they are like the HO number 5s body mounts. They can be made to fit darn near everything. But why do you say that you think you are happy with the Bachmann metal wheels? You have doubts?

No, David, I don’t really have reservations. The Bachmann wheels look nice on my cars, but I haven’t taken them out for a long run yet to see how they perform. I’ve already screened out the wobbly ones before installing them. Only other thing I’ve heard anyone say negative about the wheels is that they’re ‘loud’ running indoors. But I don’t think I’ll be running my trains indoors on a large layout anyway.

I installed the Kadee 831’s on my LGB passenger cars back in the 90’s. I’ve left them on for now. Everything else - hook and loop.

Sorry - double post

Sorry - triple post. Who knows why.

Hope I didn’t mess up your nice thread here, Mr. Maynard.

Mike, its an odds and ends post, so it was a mess right from the get-go. Or, more accuratly, its showing an attempt on my part to clear up my mess. Anyway, after some more Honey Dos, I hope to do more really important train stuff.