The beauty of lowering expectations (MT cars)

randgust Dec 4, 2015

  1. PK

    PK TrainBoard Member

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    Using a bigger file definitely helps. I got the hoppers squared up better, but I think they still sit a little high. My original goal was to replace the trucks & couplers from the original models. They weren't very good. The newer models have McHenry couplers and metal wheels. Nicer, but they still don't roll as nice as the MTs. The MT car doesn't sit too much higher that the prototype, so I don't think I'll go any lower than the existing body frame allows.

    IMG_4828.JPG

    I also figured out one reason the cars leaned. There was a cast in number on one side at each end of the underframe where it sits against the plastic body. It wiggled until I filed those off. Now it drops into place and stays.
     
  2. PK

    PK TrainBoard Member

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    I also decided to try lowering a gondola while the file was out. What an improvement, but I can understand why you would cut the end off the underbody and glue in a plastic bolster. These will be taking some ridiculously tight sidings, so I had to cut out a significant amount of material to clear the full range of motion. I'm telling myself that keeping as much metal as possible for weight is worth the effort for now. The car on the right is the stock MT, the car on the left is a Trainworx with 36" wheels. I still have to glue the stirrups in.
    IMG_4821.JPG

    IMG_4822.JPG
     
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  3. mr magnolia

    mr magnolia TrainBoard Member

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    @randgust:

    Thanks for your comprehensive and interesting reply back at #40.

    I shall clearly have to have a closer look at floor heights etc once I have finalised my notional year of operation and decided whether I need to interfere with the roofwalks and ladders too...

    I guess dock levellers for road lorries were created for a reason - be interesting if there is anything similar in the railroad world.

    Donald

    Sent from my Archos 80c Xenon using Tapatalk
     
  4. Inkaneer

    Inkaneer TrainBoard Member

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    I have read the prior 2+ pages of postings on this subject of lowering cars and I am inclined not to do it. Several factors figure in to this. The big ones are that lowering a demands body mounting the coupler. Every car I own with body mounts requires a longer coupling distance between cars. This, to, me is more apparent and therefore more unsightly than the extra height of the car. Then there is the problem of the sheer number of cars that I own. This would not be a one night project or even a one month project. At the leisurely pace of five cars a day for five days a week (I have a social life you know) I figure about 2.5-3 years should do it. That ain't gonna happen! Then there is the issue of resale value once a car has had its underframe hacked away. There are other issues but these will suffice. So in short, this will require a major effort with a minimal return. Just my take on the matter.
     
  5. wcfn100

    wcfn100 TrainBoard Member

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    In regards to the MTL Standard Box Cars, it isn't the ride height that's the issue, it's the overall height. The MTL Standard box cars are about 6" too tall which is why they look like they are riding way too high when in reality it's only a couple scale inches. If you were to lower these to where the running board was at the 'correct' height' they would look just as silly being too low compared to other cars as they do out of the box being too tall.

    Basically they is no 'correct' height to be had. About all you can do is find something in the middle that looks good to you.

    As for the loading docks consideration, I don't know if it's 4' but that would be arbitrary depending on where you start measuring from (the ground, top of rail etc..), I do know that the door opening on the PS-1 is about 3' 8". If you're using the MTL model, you need to add a couple inches as the door does not at the correct position on the car.


    Jason
     
  6. PK

    PK TrainBoard Member

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    Lowering car height doesn't require body mounting couplers. I only lowered the gondola above as much as I could with truck mounted couplers. If I read correctly, Randgust isn't body mounting either.

    As far as correct height, I agree that one lowered car would look wrong in a string of unmodified cars. However, when I decided to lower gondolas, it's because when I look at the stock MT gondola, I see light between the truck & carbody. Look at a prototype gondola and the carbody covers the top of the trucks. No light gap. To me, it's not that I know the car is X scale inches too high, it's the gap I want to eliminate.

    I'm not suggesting everyone should lower their cars, only that I want to lower at least some of mine and I didn't find it too difficult with some of the advice in this thread. The advice also helped out with the truck swap where the bolster needed filed.
     
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  7. ClassiCut

    ClassiCut TrainBoard Member

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    I am not using body mounts either and these cars actually worked out well with just new blocks. I am considering body mounts but just to make the gap more prototypical. I am thinking about getting the couplers closer to the body........ My measure is like 4ft for the full size ones.
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
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  8. ClassiCut

    ClassiCut TrainBoard Member

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    I was out last weekend and found this row of empties waiting for a load of copper
    [​IMG][​IMG]
     
  9. mtntrainman

    mtntrainman TrainBoard Supporter

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  10. bill pearce

    bill pearce TrainBoard Member

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    I must respond. Above all, body mounted couplers are many times more reliable than truck mounted ones. I found it well worth the work when the cars were in the hidden areas of my layout. Second, the coupling distance should not be a problem. It is up to the modeler where the coupler box is mounted. Of course there could be a problem with tight radius curves, but if a modeler is sufficiently committed ot prototype fidelity to body mount, that modeler probably isn't running things on 9 3/4 inch curves. AS to time, it's like hand laid turnouts. My first took and entire evening, and my last ones took around 20 minutes. A Saturday or Sunday afternoon could produce at least a dozen body mounted cars. As to resale value, I didn't buy things that I didn't know I would have a long term use for, so not a problem.
     
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  11. randgust

    randgust TrainBoard Member

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    I don't body mount - primarily because I do use the magnetic uncoupling, and truck mounts do a much better job of preserving vertical and horizontal alignment over magnets than body mounts. I do have some body mounts and don't 'undo' them, but anything that regularly hits switching stays as a truck mount. I've never had problems with them derailing, and I also haven't had any problems with car lowering, either.

    The 4' is maximum height from top of rail (see the NS diagram).
     
  12. Unittrain

    Unittrain New Member

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    Thanks for the information on how you go about cutting the underframe and adding a new bolster to the mtl gondolas. I got two that I have lengthened by cutting them in 4 places and adding .043 strip where the cuts are and then gluing them back together I used an exacto miter box to do the cuts. I just have to match the paint for the strips and apply new bolsters and body mount couplers.
     
  13. randgust

    randgust TrainBoard Member

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    There's a bunch of things that contribute to better equipment realism, and at least for me, some priority analysis trade-offs. This is just one issue of many, but in my analysis, has better impact than some other things many consider as current state-of-the-art.

    By most N standards, I don't have a huge fleet of equipment - probably 200 cars total. So it's possible to do selective upgrading without biting off a huge project. I tend to look around and see a car and think, yeah, that's the worst-looking car left here....fix it or out it goes.

    Body-mounts: Can't see any difference either in performance or appearance for the most part. Depends on degree of difficulty; tend not to change either. Big payoff on heavyweight passenger cars if you get proper steps out of it. Big problems with body-mount coupler swing on Atlas 89' piggyback flats - returned them.
    Metal/smaller flange wheels: Was actively doing it until I started lowering cars instead. Still pays off on tank and hopper cars.
    Wheel, truck, and trip-pin painting: 100%, done on every car if it goes over the workbench. Nothing black and shiny survives.
    Body lowering: Really noticeable on flats and gons, some tank cars, some boxcars. Lowered body makes the trucks/wheels much less visible and negates any appearance payoff on smaller flanges on a standard carbody. Will never be done to all cars, 'worst first' analysis as mentioned here.
    Etched metal roofwalks and details: Much bigger appearance payoff than I originally thought; becoming a standard - removing or replacing any remaining plastic roofwalks with etched metal or replacing the entire car with a better car that has etched metal.
    Weathering/corrected paint: Standard, bigger payoff than almost anything else, particularly on the roof paint details. Unless it's a new car prototypically new within a 6-month period of my 'run date', it's weathered to some extent.
    Carbody interior painting: Paint and weather flatcar decks, paint and weather empty gondola and hopper car interiors: Huge payoff, particularly on the gons and hoppers.
    Individual car details (doors, latches, rivets, grabs, underbody detail, etc.) Only pays off if car is to be photographed close-up.


    To me, it's that relative payoff that counts for the time I put into a car. I try not to be strict policy-oriented as much as simply look at a car and try to determine what, if anything, I can do to address the worst things you first notice about it. For example, all the old Bachmann covered hoppers have absurdly thick ladders, braces, and roofwalks, even though some actually have some rather nice paint. Fix or replace with Intermountain? I'd never bother body-mounting as the thickness of the details just overrides anything else you can do visually. And I have some nicely weathered Atlas boxcars that still have foot-thick plastic roofwalks, those look far worse than anything else on normal viewing levels - that's moved to the next project list ahead of more car lowering.

    The difficult part is accepting that a car that you may have painted, purchased, or detailed at one point before - now you objectively look at now and admit, yeah, well, it's time. Fix it or pull it off the layout, you can do better, and try to break the ties to the past.
     
  14. ClassiCut

    ClassiCut TrainBoard Member

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    Very sage advice my friend!
     
  15. cjm413

    cjm413 TrainBoard Member

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    I've found the contrary to be true, the exception being any cars that need cushioned coupler pockets...

    If you are worried about compatibility or consistency, keep in mind that a good number of new products are now coming with frame-mounted couplers.

    Resale value also works in your favor - sell the cars that aren't worth the trouble of converting to a collector and use the $ to buy new cars that don't need to be converted.
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2016
  16. Inkaneer

    Inkaneer TrainBoard Member

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    I disagree. Truck mounting provides more reliability in that the coupler is centered on the track midline. On small layouts with sharp curves that is important. Body mounts do not provide reliability on curves and the sharper the curve the reliability decreases. That is doubly true for long cars. This also applies to broad curves. Try coupling the MT heavy weight passenger cars on a curve. Even on straight track the couplers must be manually centered. That is not my definition of being reliable.
     
  17. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    I've used body mounts for a long time now, more than two decades. I have no regrets at all; it has been well worth the effort. On the prototype manually centering a coupler is quite normal. For those rare occasions, having to do this to an N scale car just does not cause me any worry or frustration.
     
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  18. bill pearce

    bill pearce TrainBoard Member

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    Opposite to my experience. And if truck mounting was such a hot idea why isn't it used on the prototype? Oh, and if needed to be centered, that's a problem easily solved with lube. And I've had truck mounted couplers that needed centering as well, cured in seconds with lube.
     
  19. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    Another vote for body mount here.

    When you drag cars around by the body, there's no force trying to twist the truck off the track. Cars are far less likely to lean over to the inside on curves. And when pushing cars through any curved track in a yard, truck-mounted couplers are the worst. Encounter any frog and you're derailed. You are shoving on the truck trying to move the weight of the whole cut of cars, and the odds it will turn sideways under that stress is far, far too great. Much better to shove on the body of the car, and let the trucks pivot freely.

    As for tracking through tight ess bends or coupling up on curves, I designed my layout to avoid these things. You know, the way real railroad engineers design their systems to avoid these things. And my layout is anything but huge. A small layout does pose challenges to realistic operation, and that's one of them. But tangents can be located close enough to the sidings that you have straight tracks to couple and uncouple on. It can be done.

    As far as I'm concerned, the only good truck-mounted coupler is on a TALGO truck. Of course, those particular couplers grab so tight that the two single axle trucks wind up acting just like one two-axle truck. Makes a difference.
     
  20. Inkaneer

    Inkaneer TrainBoard Member

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    First of all, it is used on the prototype. Not all proto cars have body mounted couplers. Schnabel cars are an example as well as some large multi truck molten steel cars. In fact most, if not all, cars equipped with span bolstered trucks have truck mounted couplers. Some locomotives had truck mounted couplers. The GG1 comes to mind and I think the Milwaukee Little Joes and electrics also. And the reason why is exactly the same as why truck mounting is done in N scale. But to answer your question as to why it isn't used as much on the prototype is because the physics are entirely different. Things do not scale up or down in proportion. In Nscale we use 9.75 inch curve radius. That scales up to 130 feet. A 16 inch radius scales up to 200 feet and an 18 inch radius equals 240 feet. Yet a prototype SD40-2 still requires an absolute minimum of 242 feet and that is by itself with nothing coupled to it. The two curves that comprise Horseshoe curve on the old PRR mainline are 609 and 637 feet in radius and long cars squeal like the dickens when traversing. Those curves would approximate 45-48 inches in N scale and are considered to be tight curves. That is a curve size very few of us can accommodate. Prototype curves are usually much larger, 1000 feet or more in radius is not uncommon. That is a radius of 75 inches. Imagine a layout 13 X 13 with a single circle of track. Prototype railroads need very broad curves because of the inherent limitation in the design of the prototype wheel and axle. They are joined as one so each wheel travels at the same rotation as the opposite one. But in a curve the outboard wheel must travel through a wider arc and therefore a longer distance than the inner wheel. There is no differential as on a truck to allow the inner wheel to travel at a slower speed. Instead prototype RR wheels have a fillet between the horizontal plane of the tread and the vertical plane of the flange. In a curve the outer wheel is pushed up onto this fillet. That increases the diameter of the wheel causing the wheel to travel a longer distance with each revolution than the inner wheel. That squealing one hears on cars at Horseshoe curve is called flange squeal and is caused by the flange contacting the rail. In essence what is occurring is that the curvature exceeds the capacity of the fillet and the flange contacts the side of the rail head. So what works on the prototype doesn't scale down to the world of N scale.

    But don't get me wrong. If you want to body mount couplers then have at it. Just don't say it is the way to go as if everyone should do it. After all model RR'ing Rule No.1 has not been repealed.
     

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