I have a chance to get a Concor Fuel-Foiler set at a good price. I haven't heard anything good about these, but it's something new to me. SO ... what would cause the least misery ??? The Fuel-Foilers, or another "Chick Flick" with GF ??? Those are my choices !!! THANKS !!!
OHhhhhhhhhhh...dont go there !!! I just sat through a 'chick flick' with the wife earlier in the evening !!! LOL. :closedmouth:
OK, COOL !!! Question has been answered !!! I guess it's some sickening "chick flick", with the potential rewards. I can eventually blast that out of my head with "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones" at 98 db in Surround Sound !!! THANK YOU !!! BTW- If you haven't seen the Stones movie I mentioned, check it out !!!
Yuppppppppppp. As I always told my kids as they where growing up..."If the momma aint happy...aint nobody happy !"
cars are extremely lightweight, almost impossible to add weight. Crude tooling, and only way I've ever heard or seen to get them to run, remotely decently, is to use weighted trailers, which makes it top heavy
Having owned a set of these many many moons ago I will verify everything that was said in the above reply. If you want some fuel foilers, do yourself a favor and save up some $$$ and get the BLMA ones. I dont own any but saw some that a friend of mine has and they are BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!! Ryan
This is actually one of the very first articles I published-- in the N-Trak newsletter about 25 years ago. What's wrong with them? 1. the plastic insert support in the trucks between units... pivots. When it pivots, the fingers of the cars come off their supports. Car flips and derails. Solution-- superglue the support bracket into the transition truck (make sure it is straight of course). 2. Burrs in the casting on the mating surface of the cars-- on the underside. Solution-- file smooth. 3. Paint WAAAYYYYYY too thick. The little center hole for the tiny pin on the support bracket is sometimes CLOGGED with paint so that the little pin won't go in. Solution-- proper drill bit to open the hole. 4. Trucks are terrible. I changed mine to MicroTrains-- but the center post is metal and PEENED down to hold the stock truck. It is a MAJOR headache to get the old trucks off. Alan Curtis or BLMA flats are much better. These are cr@p. Watch the chick flick. I would only pay 2-5 bucks for these. An only then if I had time to fix all the problems.
The Alan Curtis or BLMA sets are not a solution, if you want original fuel foilers, they are too modern (53' trailers vs 40'). The biggest problem to me is that the Con-Cor sets were 4-units and the real thing was 10-unit (for a short time) and 5-unit sets. I bought multiple sets to create the correct 5-unit sets. Left over end units were made into 2-unit trash container cars. I filled in the center sill with moldable lead, and glued the plastic truck insert in place and replaced the Con-Cor fifth wheel parts with MTL ones. They look good and run well.
Alan Curtis/N Scale Kits does make a 48ft all purpose spine car also. And a 40ft NTTX container spine, could probably combine the two to make a fuel-foiler/Impack spine. Also emailed Peter at NScaleKits and he has mentioned an Impack car maybe in the works one day.
Not a fuel foiler, but the BLMA spline cars are the best looking spline cars you can buy. Save your money and get those! I have 5 and they are outstanding.
Not in 2013-4, as we are just getting the Pennsy Queen Mary FD2 depressed center car and the 57AP spine cars completed. Some good news, we have just received the FlexiVan etches today and these look good, so we will be announcing the FlexiVan cars soon. We have the drawings for the Fuel-Foilers/Impack cars. They were done by Alan [and Matthew as ready to run 10 car ATSF sets too] in the past. However Alan and I were unhappy with how the molds worked and we withdrew them - although as they were all metal [as all of our spine car kits] they did run better than the Con-Cor cars. We will come back to the Fuel-Foilers, possibly in 2014-5. Peter Peter Harris N Scale Kits www.nscalekits.com
I've got 2 sets of the Con Cor fuel foilers(one I bought for parts dirt cheap). Took a little work but got them to run good, but not great mind you. Best thing I ever did was replacing the wheel sets. I've also got the MR article showing how to scratch build an HO version of these cars in case I get really bored. I've kinda moved my intermodal trains into the 90's so I don't really need to run the fuel foilers anymore. And with the intermodal models being produced today, they are sadly way outdated tooling wise. But I just purchased some Micro Trains flats with the TT logo so I may have to revisit the fuel foiler options. Wish me luck. Also, according to "The Model Railroaders Guide to Intermodal Equipment & Operations" by Jeff Wilson, Itel bought the patent rights from Santa Fe and produced platform configurations of the fuel foiler/impack car (Itel marketed as the Impack, or InterModal PACKage) according to customer requests. It says while the 5 car set was common, 3,4,8 and 10 car sets were also built. So at least Con Cor got that part correct.
