I am looking to assemble a small fleet of HO scale Pullman Heavyweight passenger cars. However, the only ones I can find that are either a) not ridiculously expensive (ie. over $40 each) or b) detailed or nice looking are Branchline Kits and the Walthers ones. While I am a huge fan of the Branchline ones (I have almost completed 3), I somehow manage to every time I build one, to either break the truck assembly or do it wrong, so now I have 3 nice cars with no trucks. I was wondering if anyone has an idea about whick trucks (prefferably ready-made) that I should use to complete the kit. Also, I'm not a huge walthers fan, so if anyone knows of better Pullmans please let me know.
This is no help to you but if I might ask, what is the issue with the Branchline trucks? I have a heavyweight Pullman Branchline kit I'm about to dive into, have never assembled one before, and was wondering. thanks
As I am a relatively young modeler (I am almost 14), I have found the trucks a little hard to build. By trying to attach some of the parts I have managed to bend the sides so they snap in two. Once I built them, but put the piece with the screw holes upside down (a careless mistake) that resulted in the trucks being useless, since I couldn't attach them to the cars. I am planning on building one or two more, and maybe I'll get them to work this time. It's hard to do one of the steps because you have to hold one of the wheels in place against the side fame while trying to jam the center into the two holes, whick are usually a tight fit, which is how I break them. After that step, it's much easier. I think I'll be able to do the next trucks I try to build correctly, but I need replacements for the three I have now.
Having built 2, I would suggest starting with the trucks first and aligning it before gluing then test fitting it to the bottom section first. If it isn't square, it won't roll. I've tried to find prebuilt replacements for them, but haven't had much luck. Athearn's trucks won't screw in right, and Walther's doesn't know what parts are. I haven't however tried getting and trying Rapido trucks or prebuilt trucks from Atlas (new owner of Branchline).
