I’m looking for a QUALITY replacement truck for my Walthers lightweight Budd passenger cars. I’m fed up with tinkering and tweaking the factory trucks to get them to stay on the track. It’s not as if I have tight radii. 30’ is the minimum they run on and they pass through mostly #8 with a few #6 turnouts in the staging yards. The problem is not the track as my other equipment does not have these problems.
Please do not bother recommending fixes for these trucks which as far as I am concerned are junk. I’ve gone through several old threads on the subject and tried the various fixes and none of them have solved the problem. I’ve already removed the wheels, which I have checked the gauge on, and tossed the trucks in the trash where they belong. If I can’t find a suitable replacement, these cars will go in the trash as well. My time is too valuable to spend repairing garbage merchandise.
You are convinced that the problem is not the track and, in particular, not the turnouts. If, in fact, you are correct, then the problem is likely attributable to the couplers. Walthers passenger cars are infamous for improper coupler placement, resulting in cars snagging one another on curves. The solution is longer shank couplers. The spacing between cars does not look as prototypical, but the extended spacing solves the derailment problems. In my experience, the trucks are usually not the problem.
Question: Just to make sure we’re all on the same page; are you referring to the older-run Walthers units from the early 2000’s? Or the current Walthers Mainline cars?
You’re going to have to decide how close a match you want.
In the olden days, everyone wanted Central Valley trucks. But they didn’t make a truck that would match.
Their “streamline” passenger truck was T-39.
You can also get trucks from The Coach Yard. They list 30 different passenger trucks in their current catalog. Whether they’re better or worse than the Walthers is something I don’t know. They sure cost more.
Rapido is listing 4 HO passenger car trucks. I, again, have no idea how good they are.
We’re those plastic frames or metal? My Mainline version of these cars have talgo type truck mounted couplers and seem to work fine. Plastic frames. Walthers seels metal type trucks also. The truck swing is limited by the steps at each end of the car.
Were you sure the derailing was due to the trucks?
Reason I ask is I have a couple of Walthers heavyweight with three axle trucks that seem to derail easily but it’s not due to the trucks but to underbody detail hanging up the trucks at certain rotation angles. The center frame and the stirrup steps hanging from the edge if the body are two culprits. The other is the double swing coupler design.
If yours have the same hang ups then fitting different trucks may not solve your problem.
I’m going to assume these are older run Walthers cars because I bought the 20th Century set whenever that came out and I have had no trouble with those. I bought the MTH Empire State Express Hudson and a rather than buy the matching set of passenger cars with it, I opted to buy used Walthers NYC Budd cars instead. That turned out to be a bad choice. I bought the MTH cars for the 1938 20th Century and have not had problems with them although I had to adjust the couplers. They have a two position coupler box and I adjusted the front coupler on each one so they don’t couple quite as close as the factory setting but they operate more reliably. I’m assuming the the ESE cars would do the same. Since MTH went out of business, those cars are going for a premium price on ebay. Over $600 for the five car set. I opted to go cheap and have paid the price.
If many different cars are derailing at the same spot, the problem is the track. If the same make of cars are the only ones derailing and they are doing so at multiple locations, the problem is the cars.
I went back through old threads and found several dealing with the deficiences of these older Walthers passenger cars. I’m glad Walthers has apparently corrected those but they put out some junk under their name.
It looks like the same coupler system is on these cars that are on my 20th Century set and those aren’t giving me a problem. The 20th Century cars are much more free rolling than these Budd cars and its not even close. Some of the Budd cars won’t even coast down a 1.75% grade. I never noticed this before but when I compare the trucks, I noticed the 20th Century trucks are just a litte longer than the Budd cars so apparently the trucks have been retooled.
John, I’m afraid I agree with those who feel quite secure about those trucks and their various experiences with them. I have Walthers, Bachmann, and Rapido pax cars of various kinds, and they all work really well. True, the Walthers heavies are close-coupled, and their diaphragms make really tough sledding backing through even #6 turnouts. Someone at Walthers was very optimistic positing that those cars were good on 24" radius curves. Not even close. Worse backing, and for reasons you’d appreciate.
The Bachmann Spectrum heavies are also very nice, track well, but their couplers…Good Lord!! [8o|] I had to redo them all.
If it isn’t too late already, could you spot those trucks one more chance and try a mixture of couplers? One longer at each end at first to try to get the setup to work? If needs be, make both couplers long.
Buying new couplers for junk trucks would be throwing good money after bad. I have newer Walthers passenger cars that work just fine. The trucks on the older cars are garbage. I’d rather deal with the source of the problem which is the trucks and I have wasted enough of my time trying to get them to work properly.
These are Budd lightweight cars with two axle trucks and 36 inch wheels. I want them to work. I’ve noticed these trucks are slightly shorter than those on the my 20th Century cars but those are smooth sided Pullman cars so maybe that reflects a difference in the prototype. Other than length, I see no difference in the trucks but there is a vast difference in the way they perform. The Pullman cars are smooth rollers and the Budd cars most definitely aren’t.
Well, I would recomend the walthers line of trucks. I like them and they work for me. I have had zero issues stemming from the trucks, all derailments have been coupler related. Too short of a shank, needed the longer kadees. Sorry your experience has been bad, but I do like the walthers trucks.
I like the Walthers trucks on my 20th Century Limited set which I bought when it first came out. I think that was about ten years ago. I bought these Budd cars off of ebay and I have no idea how old they are. I’ve gone back and found several threads with other people having similar problems and the recommended solutions were wide ranging. My guess is the earlier trucks were garbage. I would use a different word but this is a family oriented discussion group. Walthers may have realized they had a problem and retooled them which would explain why the later ones are so much better. That doesn’t help me because I’m stuck with the garbage. Maybe the smart thing to do would be to buy Walthers replacements but it galls me to buy from them after they produced such garbage to begin with. I’ve noticed the trucks on the Budd cars are slightly shorter than the ones on the 20th Century cars which are smooth sided Pullmans. I’m guessing that was to be prototypical. I’ll probably be buying online since it is almost a one hour drive to my LHS and since the pandemic, I don’t get into Columbus, OH very often. I’m going to have to figure out which two-axle passenger truck goes with the Budd cars. I’ll buy one pair and see if they are any better. If so, I’ll replace all of them. I have a total of six of these cars. I used to have seven until I tried to see how high I could make one bounce off my concrete basement floor.
UPDATE: I just checked the Walthers website and the correct replacement truck is part #381-800051 which is out of stock. I’ll try to find a pair online.
They can’t be worse than what I have. Yes, I would be interested in those trucks. I didn’t notice the description that said the part I looked at was N scale. I should have known from the price tag.
I really don’t understand why these older trucks are so bad because they look the same as the newer ones which run very smoothly and stay on the track. I think it’s probably a difference in the way the axle pockets were drilled. I’ve tried lubricating the pockets but it only helped marginally. I’ve tightened the pivot screw. I’ve loosened the pivot screw. I’ve even filed down the contact screws on top of the truck which was a recommendation in another threat. Nothing has cured the problem. The biggest problem is with the 60 foot RPO. I have exactly the same car lettered for Pennsy and it rolls just fine but I bought that new a few years ago so I know it’s a newer truck. I’m going to put the wheels from the problem RPO into the one that works well and that sh
I believe you said you bought them used? Who knows what “remedies” the previous owner may have tried on them. I’ve got some Rapido trucks I’ll toss in too but I think the bolsters are different.
I had trouble with a Walthers PRR express reefer derailing. The 4 wheel trucks both had one wheel that would not touch when setting on a flat surface. I did some modifications to allow the trucks to equalize and now they work well.