Modeling the DM&IR, nautrally ore cars are a large part of my fleet. The Walthers Goldline cars are great, usually no problems there. Problems are two fold, starting with the Walthers non Goldline cars (plastic wheels). Since ore cars are at a premium, I can’t just pick up only goldline sets, I have to take whatever I can get. I had planned on replacing all the plastic wheels in these sets with metal wheels, figured it would be straight forward. Not even close. All the wheels I tried adding rub annoyingly on the car, and some even restrict its operation. Why do the Goldline cars not rub (or not much) but merely adding wheels to these will cause it? Does anyone know of trucks or wheels that will not rub? I don’t really want to take the time to file down every single ore car frame in 4 spots to try and alleviate it.
Secondly, just aquired 64 ore car kits from roundhouse which i will be converting to the modern style. They did not come with trucks, wheels or couplers. Does anyone have an suggestions of what trucks and wheels will work? I don’t think rubbing will be a worry with this frame, as its a little smaller, but which trucks and wheels will be prototypical but also run the best? Couplers are also a concern, as it looks like the pocket sticks out a little too far. Any ideas on how to trim that down? Thanks in advance!
Well,first I would measure the axle length and search Reboxx for the correct axle length.
As far as trucks for your Roundhouse ore cars…Sorry…I’m not familiar with them enough to even attempt to suggest a truck beyond Roundhouse. I never own a ore car in 60 years I been in the hobby.[:O]
You did not say what brand/type of metal wheelsets you have tried. A friend has lots of Walthers ore cars. The ones without metal wheels get I-M 33" wheel sets, after he reams out the journal with a Micro-Mark ‘Truck Tuner’(the best model railroad tool investment you will ever make).
And I use I-M 33" wheel sets(buying them in 100 ct ‘bulk pack’ boxes is the way to go). You should be able to find them on the web or eBay for around $70-75 per box with free shipping. The part number for the 100 ct box is 40055.
I built a few kits that came without trucks, and I’ve replaced a lot of ancient trucks while upgrading old rolling stock. Tichy Trains sells bulk-packs of trucks in several different styles. These are plastic trucks which take paint well. They come with plastic wheels, which I replace with Intermountain wheelsets. At $14.50 for 10 pairs of trucks it’s hard to go wrong.
If you use standard wheelbase trucks, the close clearances under the ore cars will cause the wheels to rub, as you’ve noted. By bringing the axles closer together, these eliminate the rubbing.
IIRC, the MDC cars don’t need this as they were designed with plenty of (non-prototypical) clearance for the trucks to swing. It’s been a long time since I had any of these in hand, so maybe someone else can suggest a suitable truck they know will fit?
I recently built up a DM&IR ore train, which I built with all Walthers cars. I swapped in the correct short-wheelbase truck frames and bought several bulk packs of Intermountain 33" wheels. There were a handful of cars that had some squeaking from the wheels rubbing against the bottom of the cars, which I fixed by adding gray Kadee washers to the offending trucks, which was enough to get rid of any noise without affecting coupling.
Well, try to solve the problem inexpensively first.
I would try adding a kadee washer in between each truck and body, raising the car off of the truck a bit.
For the MDC’s, I assume a standard freight truck from any of the manufacturers would work. At their price point, I doubt that MDC made a special truck just for the ore cars.
No, the issue is limited clearance for truck swing because Walthers built them to use prototypically correct short wheelbase trucks. Standard wheelbase trucks put the wheels where they tend cause the rubbing that folks complain about.
Raising the body of the car with a washer will gain you the needed clearance, but will also raise the coupler mounting height. If you’re consistent, you can make this work on your layout, but it may cause compatibility issues with other rolling stock because of the non-standard couple height.
I don’t think the truck length is really the problem. I mostly suggest swapping the truck sideframes because the cars look better that way. Yes, the longer unprototypical trucks had a very limited swing, but with such short cars you need to have tight curves before that becomes an issue. In my experience it was a purely vertical clearance issue. A single washer, especially the gray washer, won’t change the height enough to cause trouble.
One note about coupler height, though, is that I found that some of the first run of the ore cars had an issue with the underframe where the coupler pocket wouldn’t sit flush. I did have to attack that with a file to get the couplers to not dangle low. It’s hard to describe the change, but if you compare with one of the newer cars you can see the difference.
One remark buried in that thread might be the solution since it appears to be something of a design anomaly or flaw with the cars (similarly a Walthers caboose had a wheel rub problem due ironically to the designers following prototype drawings too closely and forgetting our oversize flanges): a bit of judicious filing away on the car body where the rubbing takes place.
Walthers recently had a sale on ore car truck frames (no wheels) so I got some, but I found the rubbing was the same as with other trucks. When the Walthers cars first came out I replaced their trucks with Proto (then Life-Like) trucks with metal wheels, adding one or two Kadee shims (normally the red ones) and they roll very freely.
For the old MDC “Michigan” cars, you can’t do too much with the couplers to make them closer together. I divided mine into groups of four, with homemade drawbars between them to get them as close as possible. Still a little gap between coupled sets, but not that noticeable. MDC cars came with just their standard plastic freight car trucks, at one time you could buy them for like a buck a pair at the LHS. Pretty much any freight car truck would work I’d think.
“Secondly, just aquired 64 ore car kits from roundhouse which i will be converting to the modern style.”
Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough. Problem isnt the wheels persay, rather they rub on the bottom of the car where the dump doors are located. I haven’t noticed much of a problem on the Goldline cars,but when I added metal wheels to the regular line cars they rubbed bad. Goldline comes with metal, regular does not. I went ahead and purchased some walthers ore car trucks from the website and hopefully those will be able to help this problem. I will try the kadee washer trick and see if that helps too.
They aren’t Michigan style, they are Minnesota. By modern I just mean they are taconite cars.
The Roundhouse cars (now made by Athearn, originally my Model Die Casting) are “Michigan” ore cars - i.e., cars used in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The rectangular sided ones are based on Milwaukee Road cars, the ones with outside bracing are based on C&NW cars. If you compare them to the Walthers “Minnesota” cars (as used by DMIR, GN, NP) you’ll see that, as in the prototype, the Roundhouse cars are a little narrower and a little taller than the Walthers cars. The top of a regular Roundhouse car is about level with a Walthers with taconite extensions.
Generally, each type was only used in their own area. For example, the Soo Line served iron mines in both Minnesota and the U.P. (Upper Peninsula of Michigan). They used “Minnesota” cars in Minnesota, and “Michigan” cars in the U.P. The DMIR did sell some old “Minnesota” cars to C&NW around 1980, CNW painted over the DMIR lettering with black paint and stencilled them for the C&NW.
For the Walthers cars, I went ahead and purchased the special short ore car trucks, and with 33 intermountain wheels it seems to have done the trick! No more rubbing! Now to clean their stock out…