I am building a mail train composed of Athearn HW baggage cars. I would like to hear some suggestions for improving the trucks and the couplers for these cars. Should the original Talgo trucks be replaced with a body mounted couplers and replacement trucks? If so, what brands are recommended? ( I run 25" minimum radius curves;#6 turnouts on main and #4 turnouts in yards)
RicZ
I’m no expert on the subject, but I bought 7 older Athearn heavyweight cars to repaint in UP gray colors. I just replaced the couplers with Kadees, replaced the wheelsets with Intermountain 36" ones, and added diaphragms. They work ok on my layout which has 26" curves, #5, 6 turnouts (no #4s).
I would expect that, as long as you keep all cars to the same type of trucks and coupler mounting, you will do well.
I would worry, though, if you mixed the Athearn cars with others that had body mount couplers.
Of course, you can run the train as-is for awhile and see how things go.
Ed
Since I have never switched my passesger trains, I usually just leave whatever coupler and mounting they came with. I install Kadee 36" wheelsets.
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My Heavyweight Rivarossi cars run just fine with the original truck mounted X2F clone couplers. As long as I do not have a problem, I leave it alone.
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I obsess over my feight cars, but take a devil-may-care attitude with my passenger equipment.
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If you want to switch cars or change consists this will not work.
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-Kevin
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RicZ,
I have several hundred Athearn passenger cars and here is what I do. Keep the trucks, cut off the talgo coupler pocket, body mount Kadee long shank couplers. I use Kadee #36, they have the widest swing.
If you can find them, Jaybee coupler mounting pads make the conversion easy.
I use American Limited diaphragms and set the couplers back to get touching diaphragms.
If these are newer production RTR cars, keep the wheelsets, they are very nice. If they are the older kits, see if you can find the new Athearn wheelsets, they have sold them, not sure if they are still a current item - ATH90504, 36" long axle, 8 per pack.
Other wheelsets will work, but these are best, they fit with the least slop and roll well.
Hope that info is clear and helpful.
Sheldon
With a 25" minimum radius, I’d be tempted to keep the talgo-style couplers.
While most of my mainline has a 34" minimum radius, I have a couple of Athearn coaches that I’ll be using as trailers for my doodlebug, and I’ll see how they perform with the talgo-style couplers before I go hacking them off.
Here’s the doodlebug…
…and one of the trailer cars - it’ll get similar paint:
I seldom change-out wheels unless there’s something really wrong with them and ditto for trucks. However, I recently modified a Tyco tender for a good friend, replacing the old trucks with Walthers straight equalised Commonwealth trucks for passenger cars.
The idea here was to improve current collection, and it worked out beautifully, going from four brass tender wheels picking up power with the original trucks, to 12 plated wheels using the Walthers trucks. I also added all-wheel pick-up to the locomotive, and it runs like a dream.
However, using those trucks was my first experience with them, and I’ve already purchased a couple more pair, in a different style, for use on some of my passenger equipment. Like my friend, I run DC and don’t use lights, but the trucks roll well and look good, too.
Most of my Athearn passenger cars were converted to baggage cars, like this ex-Pullman…
…or this ex-coach…
This one is two large-door halves of two Athearn baggage cars…
Something like this?
Somewhere I read that they used to run solid express and mail trains up the Connecticut River line. Especially around Christmas to handle all the packages and cards. The author concluded by saying “I doubt that any of the HO railroad crowd has done a consist like that”. Well, that sounded like a challenge and I have been collecting baggage cars to build such a train ever since. Here is a recent one.
I keep the Athearn talgo trucks and couplers. They work well on my 22 inch curves. They look OK to my eye. I add diaphrams, they do good things. And wire handrails and grab irons. The Bangor and Aroostook car is modeled from photographs which must have been taken on the way out of the paint shop, just a little time out in the weather and the roof would not be so white and neither would the trucks.
Here is a more typical paint job. The roof, and truck sideframes are painted with Rustoleum dark gray auto primer, the Pennsy maroon is a red rattle can paint with a coat of Dullcote over the decals. The Dullcote does good things for the look of the red.
Yes, Dr Wayne may be right about keeping the talgo couplers with those curves. I have only tested my body mounts down to about 28" radius.
Sheldon
There’s a “story-type” thread HERE which features a train comprised of baggage, mail, and express cars, with captions that include descriptions and/or background info on each car shown.
Wayne