I've just picked up 2 of these cars, and they are very nicely detailed. The trucks look similar to ones found on Atlas cars, and the couplers are by McHenry. The trucks are attached with a screw. Is conversion to Micro-trains trucks with couplers a simple swap-out, or is there more to this than there appears? Thanks, Al This car may be seen if you copy and paste link below in web address bar: Athearn - N RTR PS-2 2600 Covered Hopper, BN/Gray #430104
I haven't seen a need to swap the trucks yet. The McHenry's on mine work very good. The only thing I do suggest is replacing the wheelsets with Fox Valley for a freer rolling car. I did lower mine a bit by cutting off the bolster pin that the screw threads into, filing the bolster a little bit, drill a new hole for an MT bolster pin and reinstall the trucks. There is plenty of room to do this and still keep the talgo trucks on.
I have used an easy trick that I have already described here earlier: I put a short piece of a drinking straw over the cast-on Athearn bolster pin, then it just fit into a MTL truck. I reused the Athearn screws, and everything can be reversed if you wish so. I used this method to convert my 50' Santa Fe reefers to MTL National B1 trucks. See here: MT Coupler Conversion for Athearn Freight Car - TrainBoard.com The method has been verified by the real masters Before that I have also used a method similar to what Tony described to lower a 50' PS-1 box car, but I ended up in an endless loop of filing away too much and adding shims, etc.. The car was okay in the end, but it was a lot of work.
I can’t believe I’m reading this! I thought the McHenry was supposed to be the answer to all our coupler problems.confused:
My conversion of the Santa Fe reefers was "pre-McHenry" :tb-nerd: I assume my PS 2600 hoppers are in the mail somewhere between New Mexico and Northern Germany. These will be my first McHenry couplers, so I will wait and see. The 50' reefers were not free rolling (a problem that many Athearn cars have, at least the early ones), and the Accumates gave a big gap between the cars. With Micro Trains trucks coupling is much closer, they run freely, and look very good in combination with the Intermountain 40' Santa Fe reefers. I had converted a PS-1 50' box car because of the same issues as described, and it was before I discovered that trick with the straw. So I cut off the Athearn bolsters, lowered them too much, added shims, and drilled a hole in the metal floor that holds the MTL bolster pin. Quite a PITA. The PS 2893 hoppers with Accumates also have a long coupling distance, but so far I only exchanged some wheels to Fox Valley. I might as well convert them to MTL trucks one day.
I was just thinking before reading this thread, of just giving up on Atlas, Ahearn, and Intermountain cars because of the couplers. I was thinking of only buying Micro Train cars and save the cost on new trucks, time and agony of replacing couplers. I had high hopes for the new Ahearn cars, but now I’m going to wait.
New Intermountain cars all have Micro-Trains couplers on them, so you can keep them on your list. New Deluxe Innovations, Red Caboose, and Fox Valley Models are also MTL-equipped. I'm sure there are a few others. Atlas and BLMA are using Accumates. (and of course Athearn was for some cars up till now.) I've grown to really hate Accumates. I went from having horrible experiences with them early on, to it getting somewhat better with their later releases. But they still have serioius problems. I destroy at least one Accumate coupler per month with an uncoupling pic at the monthly operating session I attend. And I'm not the only one. I have NEVER destroyed, or even severely maimed, a MTL coupler in that manner. I'm holding out hope that these just happen to randomly be from the early production where this was common, but I have my doubts. I sure hope the BLMA TopGons hold up when they get 100 cars coupled together. Regarding the McHenry's, I'm gonna hope they are as good as MTL's. I'm disappointed that they couldn't make them any smaller, but I like that they might keep MTL honest. (and in a wierd way they might actually drive a trend to move to MTL for any manufacturer other than Atlas and Athearn.)
Thank you for your replies. I prefer the Micro-trains for several reasons. They roll much better than the trucks supplied by Athearn, the M/T's have a nicer appearance overall, and the couplers have proven very dependable. These cars are very well detailed, with fine see-through roofwalks and grab irons. If they had Micro-trains trucks and couplers, this would be significant improvement to me. The McHenry couplers appear somewhat large, and I have concerns that the outside mounted springs, which do not add to their appearance, may prove to be less reliable. These are just my opinions. Al
