Are these passenger cars salvageable?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

A couple of years ago I picked up what must be a cheap make of passenger car. At firstI just snipped off the horn hook coupler on the end of the arm attached to the trucks and glued on some knuckle couplers (they are the right height) and installed some better metal wheels and proper weighting. But of course these don’t run very well and I think the couplers on the arms are yanking the cars around too much on the 22 inch curves that I try to use them on.

I have heard that body mounted couplers are best on cars, but do you think I would have any luck with these cars if I spent the time to body mount couplers where the arrow shows, under the frame and diaphrams?

Or are these cars probably just too cheap to ever have success with, and I should toss them?

2

  1. McHenry makes snap in knuckles for these IHC cars.

  2. 85 foot passenger cars with body mounted couplers (non-talgo) will not negotiate 22" radius too well.

David B

3

Jay-Bee makes coupler mounting pads to body mount Kadee coouplers. You will be limited to 22-24 inch radius curves.

4

Those are IHC or Rivarossi passenger cars. I have a set of Illinois Central cars that I installed body mounted Kadee couplers onto using the Jay-Bee mounting pads.

The biggest problem with the stock couplers and the McHenry substitutes are that they tend to sag down quite a bit and become misaligned and randomly uncouple.

They are extremely light weight, so I added as much weight as I could by pouring lead shot into the interior cavities, adding interiors, gluing solid solder into the center sill on the bottoms, and changing to 36 inch metal wheelsets.

I can now run them around the club layout with no problems at all.

If you use the Jay-Bee mounting pads, leave the Kadee coupler box slightly loose so it can swivel on the curves. I also prefer the Kadee shelf couplers for passenger cars.

5

Thanks for the tips, gentlemen. I have never come across the Jay-Bee products. I have only ever used Proto 2000 wheels.

I can’t find a home page/website for Jay-Bee to get a look at these pads. Does anyone have a link?

My cars are a nice set of simulated aluminum/steel? channel-sided NH cars. I’d like to make them work.

I also used 36" wheels, but I added weight with those useful little self-adhesive wheel weights from the auto tire shop (at which, on my last visit, the nice man just handed me several sticks, gratis!). The flanges on the cheap old plastic wheels were far too deep and threw the cars off the switch crossings.

I also just got one of those little truck reamers to create the proper conical shaped holes for the axle points. What a difference. On these passenger cars the paint had practically filled in most holes

6

The Jay-Bee coupler mounting pads for the Rivarossi/IHC cars are listed in the Walthers HO scale catalog as follows:

369-110 – Rivarossi 1920 Baggage
369-111 – Rivarossi 1920 cars except Baggage
369-112 – Rivarossi 1930 Cars
369-117 – Rivarossi 1940 Cars

I used the Rivarossi 1920 series mounting pads on the IHC cars. I don’t remember for sure who I ordered the pads from, but it wasn’t Walthers. Enter the phrase ‘Jay-Bee 369-110’ or one of the other numbers into Google and a list of suppliers will come up.

I used Intermountain 36 inch wheelsets, but Proto 2000s are also a good choice.

7

Kadee makes a #508 truck mounted coupler for those that works very well and will allow close coupling and tight turns.

8

I tried those before switching to body mounted Kadee couplers using the Jay-Bee mounting pads, and they sag or droop down just like the stock couplers.