So I am hoping and praying that my RC equipment arrives before Saturday in time to debut the CR&N #3. Touch up paint is done, coupler pocket is mounted. I even made sure I had a few cars to run with it. Now this loco and a few special pieces of rolling stock will be link and pin. One box car is already made. But in order to use it for operations or to pull my other rolling stock, most of which right now is either Bachmann or Aristo truck mounted couplers. So I needed a transition car. I made the fire car for this purpose and will use it but I wanted some quick and dirty with no real detail, something I wouldn’t fuss over. I came up with the idea awhile back of a single truck car that would have interchangeable trucks on one side and link and pin on the other. I acquired a Bachmann parts gondola so it got cut up. This is what I came up with.

To give it some weight I will fill it with real rock chunks that would be scale rip rap. I hope it works.

You could mount an out house in there!

I actually thought about that, doing a “work” car that was an outhouse. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

The other thing I need to do to this car and the box car and all future link and pin cars is come up with a better coupler/pocket arrangement. I don’t have any actual couplers and the pockets I was making I have decided I don’t like. Precision Scale Company makes a link and pin coupler/draw bar that looks as if it fits in their knuckle coupler pockets and would be a lot like the Kadee system. I am liking hte looks of them and may investigate them as a source for both my 1:20 stuff as well as the 1:24 indoor stuff.

I’m pretty sure the tag that comes with the Bachmann cars specifically states, “Line Dry Only.” Looks like you put it in the dryer and shrunk it! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

-Kevin.

Devon,

Here’s a nice prototype for modeling a top for your transition gon.

Bob

You guys are making me want to modify this gondola. I might have to cut one end out and make a deck and then put an outhouse in it. It is a very cool idea and I have thought about a little work train consist that can be taken to club meets. Hmmm, well won’t happen this week but I will put this in the bucket.

Let’s be sociable here, who wants the Honey up front in the breeze? The crew would rather have a steam heated hot tub (excluding of course one infamous speedo).

John

And that is a great point. As a transition car it would be up front and the smell of smoke and up well yeah that other smell might not make people happy.

Devin, I have to ask, is the truck fixed to the body, or can it swivel?

It swivels on the original post. I just cut down the under carriage so tha it was centered. It’s not perfectly balanced I hope to remedy that with the load. But once being pulled it flatens out already as is. On reality the cars under carriage required no NE mounting procedure it fits right where it always did. I will photograph the bottom. I made a temporary coupler pocket which will be replaced when I decide on what ia going to use.

On that note the precision scale coupler and draw bar do not fit in their knuckle coupler pocket according to them. It has not particular mounting, it’s generic. On the other hand Ozark has a working kit that is the draft gear, springs, draw bar and coupler for 9.60 and then you have to come up with a striker plate. I think this is the route I will go. They come in pairs of two so enough for one car. Pretty reasonable for basically a prototypical link and pin system.

Devon, ok. I bought a few packages of the LGB link and pin couplers, and I plan on doing one train with them.

A great way to have a transition car is to use the LGB dual bogie with 3 1 gfoot tracks.

These bogies can be turned 180 degrees and have different couplers on each end, so I can hace loops on each plus one with link and pin and the other with a knuckle.

Dan that’s basically the plan here. I already have one each of a Bachmann truck mounted knuckle, Bachmann hook and loop, Aristo knuckle, and Aristo hook and loop. These are just extra parts, its not like I went out of my way to acquire them. Each of them can be quickly changed out and being centered allows them to poke out of either side. Then on the body I have a makeshift link and pin that will get replaced by a real one and on the opposite end I will have a body mounted Kadee set to proper Kadee height. All of my locos will either be Kadee or link and pin. Therefore by switching out trucks I can connect any of my locos to any of the others systems. I would like to get set up for USA trains and LGB knuckles. Part of my problem is lack of experience on what plays nice with what and what i need to have because it doesn’t

Devon,

The only problem I can envision with this idea is that the weight of the trailing cars may (or may not) pull that car over on curves or curves on a grade. I tried the same thing years ago and was constantly pulling the idler over on various layouts I visited. The transition car should probably be the same size and weight as the rest of the train.

However, having said that, give it a try. Your milage may vary.

That’s a good point John. I was figuring ( maybe wrongly so) that the pivot of the truck would not allow it. Also I am going to weight it fairly heavy. I don’t know, we will see. If it doesn’t work I am out a bit of time and a scrap car that I had already robbed parts off of to fix an EBT version of that same Bachmann gon. I also can us the running gear off the Lil Hauler tender I bashed and cut it down and stick it under the lil gon and use it on my indoor some day. So no loss.

Devon Sinsley said:

I actually thought about that, doing a “work” car that was an outhouse. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)

“Passengers will please refrain…”

John Bouck said:

Devon,

The only problem I can envision with this idea is that the weight of the trailing cars may (or may not) pull that car over on curves or curves on a grade. I tried the same thing years ago and was constantly pulling the idler over on various layouts I visited. The transition car should probably be the same size and weight as the rest of the train.

However, having said that, give it a try. Your milage may vary.

I was thinking the same but I see more issues when backing.

I do think that shorty gondola has a tone of character and maybe it could be made into a keg car. You could put a big barrel in it with taps on both sides.

While I had planned to give this little gon a go yesterday, I had a change of plans. It was originally designed to transition from the Link and Pin primarily to whatever else I needed. Well the loco with the Link and Pin is in the shop for repairs do to faulty engineering and didn’t get run. So in a late night push to get a train that I could run I fixed up my Geep which has Kadee body mounts. So I converted a box car to have one Kadee body mount and then a truck mounted knuckle. I plumb forgot about the Gon and I could have done it with that. But I was tired.

I think with the concerns brought up here I will scrap the little gon and use the current USA Trains box car and put a link and pin on the opposite side of the one with the Kadee body mount. Then I can just swap a truck (opposite of which ever body mount I am using) like I was going to do on the gon.

On a side note, after the run of my first train I really learned a lot about couplers. In HO I almost always used Kadee body mounted couplers eventually. I trust them and my club pretty much all uses them. So I have plans to make ever piece of my outdoor equipment that isn’t part of my prototype stock have Kadee body mounted G couplers. But until that day arrives I will put up with the various others by way of a transition car. As a newbie review of couplers the Kadee body mounts had zero issue: the loco, one aritso flat, half the box car, and then a raffle win at the meet all had Kadee body mounted couplers. They gave me no trouble. I didn’t have to much issue with Bachmann to Bachmann or Aristo to Aristo truck mounts. But the Aristo to Bachmann wasn’t the most friendly. The only real issue I had was losing my caboose which had an aristo coupler. But Steve Featherkyle solved that problem for me. Turns out I was not getting the coupler closed all the way. It kinda had a half way point and when I would humped the bachmann into the aristo the real way by pushing them together the Bachmann would fully close but the aristo closed half way. Once he figured that out I pushed it closed all the way and then slide it on the closed B-mann and never lost my caboose again. All in all the couplers all did work.

Oh and the little Gon will likely find its way onto the micro. I am thinking it might have to be a MOW car, so for a RR run by a bunch of loggers and miners a keg car would be right at home as a MOW car.