I’m sure this is a topic covered a zillion times in MR and thru the forum but being a ‘new chum’ based in New Zealand (where’s that) I’m interested in converting a bunch of Atlas N gauge coalveyors, tank cars and airslides to metal wheelsets and new couplers.
What do all you pundits out there recommend??
My main problem with the existing wheel sets and couplings relates to the fact that the wagons have a miserable habit of uncoupling in the darndest places and I figure if I upgrade the wheel sets and couplers I might get better results. You should see, say 20 of the 40 wagons in tow break loose at the top of the hill (no, maybe you shouldn’t see what happens) and the guaranteed bits that fall off as a result. My Maid Marion thinks it’s a great spectacle but it’s not her I’m trying to please.
I’m thinking that this will be a two step process, mainly because my suggestion is going to be to go with Micro-Trains (MT )couplers & trucks, and then use Atlas metal wheels because the MT wheels are plastic.
The MT couplers are the best in N-scale – period. They are very reliable. The Atlas cars you have now likely have the Accumate couplers – which some of the initial releases unfortunately do have a tendency to uncouple in long trains (so you are not the only one who has this problem).
Before you start, you might want to consider contacting Atlas customer service about the faulty couplers. They are good about standing behind their product, and the newer Accumate releases are better should they replace them. It would be a far less costly solution.
Here’s the MT/Atlas solution:
I think you’d want to use the MT 1035 truck/coupler, but I’d double check with the MT conversion chart at:
If you still want metal wheels, then consider the Atlas 33” metal wheels for MT trucks (part #22133).
Like I said, it’s going to be the more costly solution, but also make them very reliable. In fact, you might not even want to swap out the plastic MT wheel
The solution is to convert to MicroTrain trucks and couplers. This may be a bit expensive if you have a large collection of rolling stock. I converted gradually using the bulk packs which are slightly cheaper. The Accumates that come with Atlas cars are not very good especially with long trains. There is much to add to MAbruce’s good advice except that InterMountain also make very good metal wheelsets for MT trucks. I have used them and find them to be very good. You could give it a try. Cheers,