I have some old Atlas 90 coal cars I been running and they keep pulling apart. Would like to change over to Micro Trains trucks and couplers. Any one know what ones I would need? Thanks Don
I would go with the Short Extension Roller Bearing Trucks. These have the old catalog number 1031 and current catalog number 003 02 030 for one pair. They are available in ten packs.
Those would work as well. The Roller Bearing version is more prototypical for these cars, however Rule #1* always applies. *It's your railroad.
Ditto on @umtrr-author. I have dozens of those hoppers, all with short shank roller bearing trucks. Medium shanks space them farther apart.
I have about 90 of these cars. All are PRR about 50% are 'yellow ball', the rest are plain. I've equipped them with the MT short shank Barber roller bearing trucks/couplers. I run them on Ntrak and never had a false uncoupling. But, right now, MT trucks are about twice the price that I paid when I made the conversion. These cars are run as a unit train and I rarely do any switching. So, I am considering swapping out the MT trucks/couplers for some other truck and using the Unimate dummy couplers for my unit trains.
I came up with a "close coupler" mod for the really old Rapido trucks (the ones with the metal C clip) and I use it on my ore hoppers. The conversion is fast to do......you remove the clip,coupler and spring from one truck, and then take a nipper and cut the hook and "trip pin" off the other truck leaving a T-shank the size of the truck end of the original coupler. This lets you simply set the first car on the track, and then the second car simply sets over the T of the first car......works easier than coupling Unimates and it's free. The biggest issue is finding those old trucks......I have all my fellow modelers saving them for me when they come across them. I DID change out all the wheels, altough you don't HAVE to.
This procedure was detailed in Model Railroader magazine a few years back. I used it on ore cars to make them couple real close.
Didn't see the article, so must have been more than "a few years" cuz I have back issues to 2008. And yes, they couple close.....almost too close. Mine just barely clear on the 11" radius curves on my test track.
I just priced a package of 10 at the train store, $75.00 + tax. Did the price of plastic go up that much? The last time I purchase them they were $38.00. I guess I'll run the Atlas trucks.
Would you have a photo of one of these conversions .... please. I wasn't aware of the article in Model Railroader but it explains a great mystery at a recent club sale day when a friend was asked if he had any Rapido equipped bogies for sale. We said ... "you want whaaaaaaaaaat ???????????".
I did a little MSRP comparison shopping this morning using the official websites. In alphabetical order... Atlas Accumate Trucks: $7.50/pair (also, $6.25 for a pair with Rapido couplers); I didn't see a bulk option on the Atlas website Bachmann EZ Mate Trucks: $61.00 for a pack of twelve pair of trucks, or about $5.08/pair; I didn't see a single pair option McHenry (Athearn): Couldn't find trucks with couplers; couplers are $7.98 for one (!) pair or a more reasonable $14.98 for six pair or $36.98 for 25 pair Micro-Trains: $9.25/pair, $80.25 for a 10 pack Prices may vary from there, of course... less via some dealers, more via some eBay sellers and Amazon (but that's another thread).
If that was Micro-Trains, the package is likely of ten pairs. Tax increases, many. Wage increases. Other regulations and business costs. All have gone way up in the past several years. All pass through to the consumer in increased retail prices.
Here's a few shots.....the bottom showing both trucks, a shot of the modified coupler, and a shot of several cars coupled together. So the first car in the set has an MT on one end and the T shank on the other. Then you just set the next car over the T shank with the open coupler box, and continue. The last car has an open box and an MT. Newer Rapido trucks won't work because the slot for the coupler faces up, where the older version faces down.
Whoa! Where are my 100's of old Rapido trucks? I did save them when I swapped out for MT or Accumates.
Those old trucks and wheelsets with Rapido couplers were proprietary items meaning they were all made by different manufacturers. Their rolling qualities varied greatly. Some were like sleds, others not so much. Back in the day, as they say, one of the reasons to switch to MT's was for better rolling characteristics even with the so called 'pizza cutter' wheelsets.
The good news is that, unlike those in Horribly Oversized, N Scale manufacturers quickly standardized on the Rapido coupler. Rapido allowed everyone else to use the design. Was it the best possible? No, but it certainly helped to have everyone using it before something better came along. Even Kadee Micro-Trains offered their rolling stock with Rapido couplers for a time. My understanding is that the cars with Magne-Matic couplers didn't sell enough copies, hard as that may seem to believe nearly fifty years (!) out.
