I just got in a small lot of (more) old stuff: a John English A-5 and an Ulrich Track Cleaning car both have these trucks. They are non-equalized, with heavy, thick bolsters, and they have "Pat. Pending" and "Micro Motive" raised lettering on the top of the bolsters. And they roll really well! Now, I've had a lot of catalogs through the years, yet this brand is new to me. I've checked the "ho seeker" website, and don't see any mention of this line. Anyone know anything about these? Mark in Oregon
Looks like they were made by The Cliff Line in North Hollywood California. You can find them on EBay. I did a Google for "Micro Motive HO Scale Truck" nice but there were not cheap.
Thanks, Dale. I also did an internet search but came up empty-handed...will now go to Google to see what you found. ...and I'm back! I did find some mention of this line, and a few pictures, however some of the eBay listings show trucks with springs: the ones I have are all cast, although upon closer inspection of mine, I see they are equalized. Cannot imagine how they were assembled... Mark in Oregon
Yeah. I still have some of those HO sprung trucks from way back in the late 1950s.. Though they looked cool, I'd heard somewhere that they derailed too much. I have no idea if that's true or not...
Hey ! I just went to a Hobbylinc.com and there are dozens of what look to be HO sprung trucks..This is not a sneeaky advert.. I am in no way connected with any form of hobby sales..It was a random click among others...M
As a kid in the late 50's we had an HO set from Lionel and those cars were sprung. I remember being thoroughly impressed with that even as a 5-6 year old.
Yep. That's how I felt back at my first encounter with the HO ones (circa 1957).. I clearly remember losing and replacing these teensy springs, which is not that dif than replacing Kadee coupler springs and sometimes those caboose leaf springs I've done quite recently (.. well, about ten months ago, before I had to move ). Furthermore there's a ton of sprung trucks in service today on various home and club layouts... Now about those sprung, equalising, steam loco driver axles......M
Those teensy springs in the older sprung trucks look impressive. They really do not equalize our light weight rolling stock. They do roll nicely. I have a mix of cast Delrin and zinc sprung trucks. The free rolling characteristics of both types are greatly improved by replacing the plastic wheels with metal wheelsets.
