I bought the Bachmann Bi level commuter coach. I added more weight to the commuter coach. The following are pictures mainly showing how I opened the coach. It requires delicacy diligence and patience. The following pictures are not arranged in order because I don’t know how to do that using the insert media feature. However you should get an idea on how to open up the model after you look at the photographs. You have to pry the top and bottom of the commuter coach open using your nails or a small flat screwdriver. You don’t have to uncrew the trucks. In fact don’t or it will make it harder to put back. The couplers and springs will fly off when you pry the bottom away from the shell. Don’t panic you should be able to put them back together. Look for the springs. If you cannot find them, order extras. Kadee has these springs. On this forum look for how to connect springs to drawbars. I cut off the protruding flash with the screw with a rail cutter and sanded it so I can replace the original bottom weight with a larger heavier weight. You can get the weight from Athearn for passenger coaches or Home Depot. Then I added more weight to the top roof. Make sure the weight on the top does not get in the way of the tabs. I used A Line 1/2 once adhesive weights. After I added the weights I put everything back together. There’s a hole at the bottom of the interior floor and the undercarriage floor that will determine the right orientation of the interior when you’re assembling it back together. Use the aligning of the windows and your common sense to determine the right orientation of the car body shell into the interior and undercarriage. The commuter coach felt allot heavier and better! In the future I will carve out a window where they drew one and dill holes on where they drew lights to install lighting with LED’s. What a shame these coaches look exquisite on the sides. They even have flush on the windows and good diaphragms and then they draw lights and windows on the front and back of the
Alloboard,
Thanks for posting this guide.
Respectfully, I hope you don’t mind this suggestion:
Good use of photos, but when you post photos, consider writing a few lines of description above each photo or every two photos so that modelers will be able to follow along a lot more easily instead of looking at the photos below, then having to scroll back up towards the top of the page to read the description.
What type of weight did you purchase from the home store for the Athearn cars? Was it aluminum? Steel? What was the thickness? 1/16", 1/8", 3/8"?
Not harping on you but just things to consider sometimes newbs that get into this hobby have no idea what we’re talking about when describing some step by step details so it’s good to simplify it as much as possible.
Antonio makes some good suggestions, as captions on the photos would make them a lot more useful.
Depending on where you store the photos, you could place them here one-at-a-time in order to have them appear in the proper sequence.
From photobucket, I simply click on a thumbnail to get an enlargement, then click on the “img” tagline, which automatically copies the info. Then, in the composition window here, simply place the cursor where you want the photo to appear and click “Paste”. The copied data appears, but once you finish your composition and hit “Post”, the data will appear as a picture.
While I’m not at all familiar with those cars, it appears to me that you could also have added the weight at the ends of the car, above the interior and just below the roof - I’d estimate that there’s room there for 4 or 5oz. of lead at each end with very minimal dis-assembly required. The high placement of weight is perfectly acceptable unless you’re operating at extremely high speeds. I’ve run full-length Rivarossi passenger cars with no problems despite having up to 15oz. of lead affixed to the underside of the roof, and all of my curves are superelevated.
I do give you credit, though, for tackling the full dis-assembly of the car. [tup]
Wayne