[soapbox]This has been the most helpful post yet. I had an idea that what Beowulf describes was the problem but didn’t have a definite plan of attack to fix it. I have about 24 of these Walther’s cars so I will be very anxious to give his theory a test drive.[bow]
Thanks Beowulf
trainnut57
Anybody remember the old Varney freight trucks? Two die cast sideframes each mounted by a single, centered screw to an arched brass “bolster”. The screw was a special shouldered screw which kept the sideframe perfectly “up & down” while allowing the sideframe the freedom of motion to articulate (or equalize?) by rotating at its center, thus maintaining equal loading on all four wheels. They worked great !!!
Then came the Kadee, Silver Streak and other trucks with separate sideframes and real, working springs. As I recall, they all worked great right “out-of-the-box”. Athearn had them too, but in kit form. You built your own and those tiny, tiny springs, once loose, were gone, never to be seen again (Kadee “spring pics” are tremendous !!) The secret here was to carefully file and hand-fit each sideframe to the bolster so they would freely articulate – let the springs hold everything togeather – and those trucks worked great too !!!
It took me a long time to realize that today’s one piece, rigid truck frame with tapered end axles can also “articulate” over unlevel track. This does require some lateral play between sideframe and axle ends, so the axle is free to shift sideways between the journal boxes. The entire truck will rotate (skew) to different effective diameters on the two tapers, thus keeping even loading on all four wheels. No, this will not accomodate much vertical misalignment in the track, but just enough to work well with good trackwork.
To be a “nit-picker” (with apologies to all) there were a very few electric locomotives built with truck mounted couplers. The Pennsylvania’s GG-1, as example, does not have body mounted couplers. Same for the Baldwin “Centipede” diesel locomotives.
Come to think upon it, if the “body” of a steam locomotive be its boiler & cab, and that