Do the USA ore cars come with metal wheels?
Duh! Never mind. It helps to look on the USA website, I guess.
Says they do come with them.
Oldtimersz dizzeeze. 
Unless there has been changes made to them since they first offered them; the ore cars are the old Lionel ones, which in spite of the good design, always sat MUCH too high. US Trains produced them in a way that they sit higher still on their trucks. This makes a rather good car look like hell.
Lowering them is not all that easy. The old Lionel trucks were not very good, and it seems that USTrains is using the same design…(Supposedly they are 1:29 scale)
In spite of offering them with metal wheels, they are no great shakes.
I have several of them, and several of the original Lionel ones…I’m not impressed.
MDC made ore cars too, and I think Piko is or was using their old dies, but they are not worth the money…the original trucks were no hell either, and the car had/has little detail…it is 1:32 scale.
Of all the ore cars available, or were available; the best standard gauge ore cars were produced by LGB of America. For great NG cars, the Bachman “Wooden Ore Cars” are very good…they come with metal wheels, but are heavy enough without them.
The LGB cars look very close to the prototype, and with the conversion to Kadee 820 body mount couplers; they close couple like the prototype, with the wheel sets almost touching.
LGB produced them in road names that never had them, They are distinguished by their air lines mounted very high, just like the railroad that actually did have them. They are very detailed. (They seem to be 1:29 scale)
If USTrains had taken the old Lionel moulds and modified the bolsters, to lower the cars, and mounted them on a good pair of trucks; they would have had a car with about the same detail as the LGB cars…and they could have been winners…!!
I have about 25 cars, with all makes mixed and repainted for my own road. They all are equipped with Kadee body mount 820 couplers. With cars like those, they are seldom seen in single car consists…they usually are seen in unit train service, hauling Iron ore. If you want a great looking train, behind a couple of SD40’s or a trio of Geep 38’s…you need about 30 cars…or more, in large scale.
I hope you find this information helpful.
Very helpful, Padre.
I have 21 LGB ore cars, but I thought about adding a few USA cars to the mix.
It is a matter of finance, I guess.
The set of Sierra Valley wheels adds 14.00 to the LGB car.
Couplers would be added to both, so I thot I might save 14 bucks. Or 18 if I used Raymond wheels.
I could go with the cheep Bachmann’s, but I like the profile of the Sierra’s.
I used a KD body mounted 700 series (can’t remember egzactly the proper #) and it puts them wheel to wheel, as well.
Jon: I have 10 of the USAT ore cars. Great cars for the price and I even modified them to couple up closer so they look better in a consist. I use all AC couplers. Later RJD
Hmm… I looked into lowering them, looks like a plastic insert can be cut away. Have not measured the clearances.
You might want to look at this page:
I think you could cut away the square piece no sweat.
Regards, Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Hmm... I looked into lowering them, looks like a plastic insert can be cut away. Have not measured the clearances.You might want to look at this page:
I think you could cut away the square piece no sweat.
Regards, Greg
I did something similar to the tender on the Connie. The bolster for the truck was HUGE and made the tender sit too high (IMHO), so I made a quick-and-dirty mold of one of them, cut them both off flush with the tender floor, and epoxied a reasonable-size resin bolster in place. Perhaps something similar could be done to the ore cars?
Greg,
Thanks for the link.
At last I could see a decent pic of the USA ore car.
You are welcome. I think you could actually break that piece out by twisting it a bit.
Regards, Greg
I have one on order just to experiment with it.
Should be interesting.