Has anyone converted Rivarossi's newer heavy weigh passenger cars to Kadee couplers? If so, what coupler did you use? I want to body mount the couplers and not use truck mounted if I can. Thanks for your help!
I did upgrade one, but was truck mounted (do not really care as I use it as a trailer for a Budd RDC.). Did you check the Kadee website, they have conversion lists.
yes, I checked the Kadee site. It appears to be in the process of being upgraded and is not so easy to navigate anymore.
What do you mean by the ‘newer ones’? The 60’ Harriman cars are what I am thinking of when you say that. As far as I know, the regular Pullman cars, the 80’ ones, had one set of tooling throughout their lives. Modifying an older car would be the same as a newer one. I haven’t watched this video, but it looks to cover some information on the cars, as well as a modification tutorial. Your main problem will be coupler swing since the cars are longer. A regular freight car-style box may not be able to handle tight curves, so I would look for extended boxes. As far as the actual coupler head goes, the scale sized couplers come undone easier with longer cars, so the #5 standard style heads would be better.
Please disregard the term: "Newer" from my question? In reality I have no idea if there is a newer design of Rivarossi's passenger cars; or, not!
It is kind of a confusing term in this hobby. Yeah, Acme introduced their truss frame series two years ago and their Superliners in the 1980s. So, does that mean those cars with clerestory roofs and wood bodies are a newer design than the stainless hi-level streamliners?
Rivarossi has been owned by Hornby for a few years now, and since then, I have hardly ever seen a North American prototype release. The 60’ Pullman and a boxcar (PS-1?) are the only ones I can think of. This is the 60’ car I thought you were talking about. It is shorter and rides on two axle trucks, as opposed to a regular Pullman. The 82’ foot Pullmans ride on 3 axle trucks. These are probably what you are talking about, since the 60’ cars already have body mount couplers. As far as I can tell, the tooling for these cars has not changed. Some later runs might have had metal wheels and other upgrades, but the car itself is unchanged. If you have a large layout with very wide-radius curves, you could get away with standard coupler boxes. To play it safe, I would install something like this: This is the Kadee 451 extended swing coupler box. It pivots on the second screw to keep the couplers aligned when long cars swing out on curves. The Branchline Pullman cars have a mechanism like this in the kit. I don’t have any Walthers or other passenger cars, so I can’t answer for them. You may need to build up some styrene at the ends of the car to get the coupler at the correct height, but it shouldn’t be too bad of a project. https://www.kadee.com/ho-scale-coup...couplers-medium-932-centerset-shank-p-359.htm
