Atlas N Trainman Passenger Cars

Lackawanna Consortium Mar 30, 2018

  1. John Moore

    John Moore TrainBoard Supporter

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    The diaphragms interest me since that has been the absent part on most passenger cars, especially if they are working models. For a long time the only game in town has been the American Limited ones. A PIA to assemble, mount and keep mounted. But once you got them right they looked and worked great.
     
  2. Thomas Davis

    Thomas Davis TrainBoard Member

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    I generally agree with Charlie- this is a pretty nice car (at least the RPO that came today).

    ...from a longish post I put up on another forum, with a few corrections.....

    In terms of overall looks, the Atlas is a very nice car, and it is within a few rivets (or rivet line placement) of many prototypes of the common 6 window heavyweight RPO car.

    The two major issues that I have read about to date are that the car is much too light in weight and that it does not roll well. According to my trusty kitchen scale the Atlas RPO weighs in at 1.3 ounce, while the MT car weighs in at 1.4 ounce (read a report that the Atlas weight 0.91 ounce- but perhaps the coach or obs weigh less?). The caveat here is that there are 2 weights- one trapped between the frame and interior floor (where you expect it) and a second one glued inside the roof. On a tight radius at high speed, I predict it will prove "top heavy", but would not expect problems in normal operation.

    On rolling, mine rolls "OK", but not nearly so well as the MT. Out of the box, the bolster pins were a little loose, and appeared to rub a bit on the center axle. The bolster is offset rather like a MT, but on the MT RPO, the bolster is offset toward the end, on the Atlas, it offsets toward center. The Atlas is also "loud" (I have no better way to explain it)- literally makes more noise over Peco code 55, oddly, runs smoother with less noise over Atlas code 55 (still not as smooth or quiet as the MT). Overall axle length .573 (per my cheap caliper- so please don't buy wheels based on my measurements), diameter over flange .275, over face .24 (MT axle .537, flange .272, face .227). 36"= .225

    Measurement inside at the corners is 4.5 inches- 60' "over the end posts" (MT 4.44 but thicker plastic). I get 4.61 over the outside corners (MT 4.58), and 4.815 over the diaphragms (MT 4.72, the difference being mostly the diaphragm itself). Atlas car us a bit narrower at .742" v the MT at .78

    My Atlas car came with a second set of diaphragms in the box. The ones mounted to the car had 3 folds, while the spares have 4. I speculate this is so you can have diaphragms that touch if you want them to.

    Overall detailing of the Atlas car is (my opinion), if anything, better than MT on rivets. The mail catchers (err... hooks....err...whatever those are called) are cast in, but it is a fine bit of casting, and they included the safety bars (not modeled on the MT car) for the other doors. What is not included on the Atlas car (but is on the MT) is the handle that extends above the mail catcher, to give the operator leverage to extend the catcher out. Another odd bit of detailing in the door area is that the ladder rungs below the door are actually attached to the trucks instead of the body of the car- clearly to enable the trucks to swivel in tight turns. Atlas' truck has a thicker frame and thicker wheel that MT ( Atlas .694 over the bearings, MT .624, and so has .035 more space on either side to clear the ladders).

    Atlas has committed the big "no no" of gluing in the windows in my UNDEC car. That said, the glue is very soft-I imagine is some sort of flexible PVA or something similar- but although it will be easy to remove, the clear sheet is so thin that I doubt it can be removed without damage- so lay in some .005 or .010 clear before you start your painting project. The other thing missing here are the bars inside the windows, but they could be modeled with very thin wire. The MT car has a "frosted" window, and some horizontal lines in the frosting that simulate this.

    In one of the early threads on these cars, I promised Atlas that I would buy 10 RPO interiors if they made them available as a separate part.
    Which I was thinking was an exaggeration, until I counted....and between full RPOs, and the ones I need to kitbash baggage-mail cars, yep, 10. MT does not have an interior- so this is a big plus for the Atlas car. RPO interior is well done- nice bins and shelving, given that a weight was shoved in under (so the floor is a couple feet higher in that area, and you may have to chop off the legs of any modeled employees- but that is common to most N scale model interiors). It has detail for the "hopper" provided for convenience of the crew- ironic, since there is no window, and view is blocked from the doors by an interior wall- the heat stove is also modeled with a little cylinder of plastic- but again is invisible without taking the car apart.

    Roof, sides and ends are cast together, which makes it a bit less convenient as a core, or for kitbashing. However, a positive is that the roof does not have a lot of cast in detail, making it easier to add road specific ventilators and such.

    There are also a couple starter holes provided in the ends of the underframe that appear to be for body mounting couplers, if one is so inclined. (nice touch).

    My undec will go into the "to be painted box" and at some point will be wearing L&N blue with Palmer script lettering. If you are willing to accept the belt rail, you could add a "Santa Fe" sill channel, and have a reasonable stand in for an ATSF RPO (all photos I have of ATSF RPOs show no belt rail, but they did buy several them in several lots, so I would not want to state that definitively). I should also note that the ATSF RPO would need the unusual 4 wheel trucks they used. The Atlas car could be detailed to be representative of cars of quite a number of other roads.
     
  3. brokemoto

    brokemoto TrainBoard Member

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    I know that I am reviving an old topic.

    Has anyone else had this problem with the observation car?

    The body does not fit the chassis well. The chassis tends to bend down at the observation end. The shell does not seat properly on the chassis. I saw this, but, as I had bought two, I took out the other one from its box and compared. It had the same flaw.

    I put the thing onto the track and it kept jumping the track. I put my nose to the track and noticed that there was daylight between the rail and the wheels on one side. I made sure that the trucks were not warped. I looked at a few things, then saw that there was a little lip on the bottom of the shell at the observation end. I trimmed it down a bit. The result was that the shell now seated properly onto the chassis and the wheels made proper contact with the rails. It also stopped the derailments.

    Has anyone else noticed this?
    How did you address it?
     
  4. bremner

    bremner Staff Member

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    Reach out to Atlas
     
  5. timhar47

    timhar47 TrainBoard Member

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    I also am reviving this post - I just received my 3 Lackawanna cars, and while running them on the layout, the go around about twice(small layout) and then the last car derails from the rear while running through an atlas code 80 'new' switch (straight run, not thrown. I then find the switch points were moved. They also seem to 'bump' through the 'new' Atlas code 80 manual switches. These same switches would not handle older Atlas freight cars, they would ride up on the points. Do I have a batch of improperly made Atlas Code 80 Switches? I am very disappointed.
     

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