I just bought a bunch of new Atlas Thrall 2743 gondolas, and I'm really disappointed that all of them are running really rough -noisy, not free-rolling and when pushing them on the track it feels like they are running on sandpaper. Compared to other out-of-the-box cars from Atlas, MT etc, these run terribly. I thought it was the wheels scraping on the underframe so padded them out with washers between the truck and bolster, but it made no difference. I checked the wheels, and they seem ok. The models are from different batches, so it's odd that it affects them all. An overall design flaw maybe? Has anyone else experienced this? And got a solution?
Sometimes others on TB have had the same problem and they can help you; otherwise, you will have to discover at least part of the issue on your own. AFAIK, I don't own any of these cars. You might check for these: axles out of the bearing socket flanges scraping aginst the floor of the car axles scraping on screws mounting the couplers Check for some of these. The items listed can be caused by several other things. Just let us know what you find and I am sure you will find more specific ideas here on TB.
Agreed. Just replace the trucks and couplers. I do have one of these. I replaced my trucks with MT and pizza cutter axles; I have no problems with the car.
I remember that I had similar problems some years ago with some tank cars. These were the new Atlas 100-ton trucks which use new 36" wheelsets with a different axle length. Fox Valley offer some wheelsets that fit these trucks, according to my list these were FVM 3612. I used them also on my single Atlas #50 000 466, the UP 2743 gondola. But you should check your cars before spending your money!! :wideeyes:
I think svmckee described the same problem I had with the plastic wheelsets, they were running not smoothly but rumbling, like they had flat spots. It was possible to run them, they did not derail or bad things like that, so I did some truck swapping and used the newer trucks under some Atlas 52' gondolas. Later Fox Valley introduced replacement wheelsets with the new axle length and the cars ran smoothly with them. The latest Atlas cars with 100-ton trucks I have are the coil cars, they came with metal wheels and work well. I did not check the axle length of these because the cars are fragile, no need to risk damage. I opened a post about this four years ago: http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...as-20-700-gal-tank-car-interesting&highlight=
They put some different type of plastic wheel on these that's just crap. Replace them with FVM and be done with them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I don't own any of these either. I wonder if there is a bit of flash on the axle hitting the coupler pocket or truck pin? Just a guess I had a Trainman covered hopper that kept "ticking" and driving me insane till I discovered that little gem.
You might want to check the wheel itself. I remember seeing IM wheels where the mold didn't line up and the car thunked down the track!
How good were the FVM 3612's? From what I've read in the posts you mentioned (including on the old Atlas Forum) the 3612's would have been too long. Steve
Thanks for all the help and feedback. I tested adding FVM #3602 wheels (0.553" axles) and though they feel a little loose the cars actually run great. I contacted Atlas and they sent me a pair of replacement trucks to test, which worked really well. I don't know the part numbers though, and am waiting for an email reply from them. Surprisingly they claim to have never heard of this problem before. I don't quite believe that. I'm tempted to just use FVM wheels though, even at the extra cost, because they perform so well. I'm just not sure what the right axle length should be. I've read that the Atlas wheels are 14.44mm (I can't accurately measure mine). Atlas simply said they were "1.5cm across". FVM have three widths that could arguably be right - #3602's at 0.553", #3603's at 0.563" and #3605's at 0.576". Does anyone know which will work best? Just to repeat I've tried the #3602's (0.553") which run great but still feel a little loose. Steve
Updating this - the FVM 3603s are the best fit. The FVM 3602s are too loose, but still perform better than the crummy Atlas wheels.
