Over the last 20 years I have collected passenger cars mostly Bachmann Spectrum, Con-Cor, Rivarossi, Athern and IHC and displayed them in a case on the wall. I now have ten trains with eight cars in each and want to make them operational on the new DCC layout I am building. When complete I will be able to run six trains and a yard at the same time.
They all have the hook and horn couplers, which are attached to the trucks and they all, have plastic wheels. They may look good but keeping them on the track is another thing.
What specifically would you do to make this fleet operational?
I would also like to install lighting in the interiors.
Another thing unless I hit the lottery this weekend I will be working on only one train at a time until complete.
InterMountain or Proto 2000 metal wheelsets can be used on the IHC passenger cars as replacements. For some reason, Kadee wheels don’t work very well on this brand.
Bachmann Spectrum should already be illuminated, have interiors, metal wheels, and knuckle couplers. The Bachmann couplers are not very good, so I replaced them with Kadees. Bachmann’s interior lighting uses a single incandescent bulb in the center of the car and a plastic light guide that does not work very well. Passenger car lighting is usually something that you’re better off without in HO scale, in my opinion, because none of the available products work well enough. Interior lighting demands that people and other details be put into the cars, and the available figures don’t fit well into the seats without chopping off legs or performing other surgery on them. My experience has been that the windows are too low and the seats are too high on IHC and Bachmann passenger cars, which causes the people’s heads to disappear above the window openings, which is not realistic at all. Many of the figures I used had to be chopped off at the waist. You can’t see their legs and feet anyway. Even with seated figures, there was usually no room for their legs and they had to be cut off to fit the figures into the seats.
McHenry makes a knuckle coupler that is a direct replacement for the truck-mounted couplers on IHC passenger cars. I believe McHenry’s catalog number for them is #52 and 53. The difference between these two is the shank length. Be sure to get the newer ones with a knuckle spring.
I recently installed Kadee 508 adapters onto a set of IHC passenger cars so I could use Kadee #5 couplers, and this adapter created all manner of problems. The trucks had to be modified to such an extent to install the Kadee adapter that the McHenry couplers can no longer be used, so now I have no choice but to go with Jay-Bee mounting pads and body-mounted couplers.
First thing is first, add weight. There are several ways to go about this and you will every way possible in this thread. Personally I just use the A-Line 1/2 oz lead weights with the sticky backs. I only add about two ounces per car because of the lengths of my passenger trains. I use a lot of brass car sides as well, so you may want to add a little more weight for the cars mentioned in your original post. You just have to get a little creative when hiding them using shades and partitions (walls). That alone should help the cars track a lot better. The root cause of the derailments may be caused by trying to operate the cars over to tight of a radius.
As far as the trucks go, you seem to realize that the plastic wheels are no good. If you have the dough to burn, I would take a look at the IHC metal wheelsets. They are AWESOME!! They are fully sprung and have the appropriate 36" wheels. They do run about $20.00 a pair, though. I would at least replace the plastic wheels with some 33" metal wheels from Kadee or anybody else. And with the couplers McHenry makes a replacement coupler for the talgo trucks so you can have knuckle couplers. You may also want to take a look at the Kadee website. They have a guide that will help quite a bit if you want to use their products.
IHC also manufactures interiors that should work just fine for your cars. I also find myself making my own interiors quite often using Evergreen styrene.
I don’t do lighting, so maybe somebody else could help with that…
Just to add about why the Kadee wheels don’t work well with some trucks is because of the angle of the needlepoint (end of axle). You nee to use a truck tuning tool on the trucks to get the correct angle on the truck to match the Kadees. Once that is done any wheel will fit just fine and will roll like nothing else. I figured this out after having some problems with the Train Station Products trucks. I reamed those babies out and everything is G2G now!
Thanks very much to cacole and csmith 9474 for your expert information. It is nice to know that there are still dedicated and knowledgeable hobbyists out there who are willing to share.
If funds or hobby hours are limited, I’d recommend starting with the basics. Get the NMRA gauge and check wheel gauge and coupler height on all cars for starters. Adjust as needed. Couplers can come next, and can be done in stages by using an idler car, one with a Kadee on one end and the original coupler on the other end. Then go to the wieghting of the cars, refer to NMRA Recommended Practice 20.1 on their website http://www.nmra.org/standards/rp-20_1.html After that, proceed with the wheel changes. Doing these things all at once is OK if your hobby shop has the items on hand in the quantity you need, you can afford to buy them all at once, and you have lots of time to devote to the work.
Wow, that is a loaded question that could take a couple books to answer. I undertook a similar project about two years ago. It also depends on whether the platforms will be put to a prototypical height, and what size curve they will be required to negotiate.
The Bachmann Spectrums should be good with a simple coupler change to Kadee.
The Rivarossi lots of things. Weight, It is tempting to just fill the equipment boxes molded in the floor but be careful. Get it as low as possible and balanced side to side and end to end. One must build a coupler platform at the end. I tried the ones specifically made for that but couldn’t keep them glued on. It seems the plastic they are made of is just enough different from the plastic of the car that the best cement for one doesn’t work well on the other. I took to simply putting two layers of thick styrene there. Then I drill a #50 hole tap it 2-56 and use a Kadee #6 or #46 coupler. These are the longest shank coupler possible, and allow the most “swing” To put IHC trucks on one must build a new bolster because the factory trucks don’t pivot from the center. Once again someone makes a part specifically for this, but I found that they still have to be filed down a lot. So once again simple styrene sheet and a 1/8" styrene tube to build one from scratch.
The IHCs are similar to the Rivarossi but more top heavy and sway rolling down the track. They need a lot of weight, and require more bolster work to hunker them down better.
Can’t comment on Con-Cor.
All the Athearns are shorties so I don’t deal with them.
Did you really have to post that pic. I think I am going to be ill. Sorry about your loss. I actually did have discussion about this with somebody. I have been considering lighting so that is good info to know.
Fortunately it is just a Rivarossi. It isn’t too much of a loss if it can prevent it from happening to someone else. I will simple whack out about the center 20 feet of the car and make it into a “shorty.”
This could have been prevented by making certain the bulb was centered in the car, not physically touching the roof or wall. A piece of aluminum foil for a heat sink placed between the bulb and roof (that would make the light better too). A resistor or second bulb placed in series in the circuit.
Well it is not a total loss. That car would be a great centerpiece for any number of scenes. Heavily weathered, trucks removed, sitting at the edge of a yard waiting to be scrapped. Newly burnt in a yard with police and postal inspectors all around. In an active station with the Fire Department still present. Just some ideas that popped into my head when I saw it. Have you done anything with it?