Question for the die hard Postwar fans. I have been operating my Dad’s collection of S guage cars, and I noticed the Lionel / American flyer cars roll with less friction than the older American Flyer cars. When I removed the wheel set from the trucks I notice the axles have flat ends compared to their Lionel/American flyer counterparts made in the 80’s and 90’s, so to minimize any rework to these collectables (i.e. remove and replace the trucks). I milled down a set of axles on a low priced postwar gondola, and it seemed to help. Has anyone tried this with their post war O guage or S guage cars? Is there a bearing kit for the needle axel to interface with the sintered truck to improve them still? I still use a mix of original S guage and new S Gargrave’s track. Should I worry about the collectability of the cars and not modify the wheel axle ends? Its nice to pull 25 + cars compared to just 8…
In response to your question: Being a long time operater of AF trains I understand your frustration and want for pulling longer trains. If were to hone down the flat blunt axles that AF used on the die cast trucks they will over elongate the truck side frames causing a wobble. I no of no retro fit bearings available to insert into the frames. As to destroying the value of the car, it depends on how collectable the car is itself. For example: a #940 hopper car is worth about $10 verses a #952 pullman car worth over $100. You’ll find that if you kep the axle ends and truck frames very clean and lubed with a silcone spray , and be sure that the truck frames are in proper gauge that the cars will roll quite freely. As for 25 and 30 car trains??? lol Don’t beleive everything flyer wrote in their catologs, your post war engines are an average of 50 years old. Even with pullmore tires if try to over do it you’ll end up burnning up the motor!!!
I agree about the lubing and aligning the wheels. I am currently pulling a 718, 615 & 5, 650 passenger cars on one line and 10 loaded gondolas on another line with no problems. I think on a long layout I had 30 cars behind a 293 once. As stated if you run higher amps (>3) for very long you will have trouble. That is why I monitor the amps with my console.
John, you must have been reading Doyle’s book. The postwar truck sideframes are cast zinc, not sintered iron.
You may have noticed that modern wheels are fixed on the axles, unlike postwar wheels, which need to be loose to allow the differential motion to get around curves. The modern wheels also have conical treads–an exaggerated version of the prototype tread shape–to compensate for not being able to turn on the axles. If you can find a way to put plastic bearings into older trucks, you should probably abandon (or save) the postwar wheels and get some modern wheelsets to replace them.
He is talking about Gilbert wheels, not Lionel. On regular Gilbert cars, the wheels were made of black plastic, had a flat tread, and were pressed onto the axles. On tenders, operating, and lighted cars, two plastic and two metal wheels(aluminum or brass) were installed on each truck. From 1946 -1952 (link coupler era) the trucks are made entirely of sheet metal. Starting in 1952, as the link couplers were being phased out in favor of knuckle couplers, the trucks changed. They now had a sheet metal frame with sintered iron truck sides riveted on to the frame. These truck sides have a nasty habit of loosening up and falling off of the frame. They are a pain to repair.
If you want to improve performance, you can replace the original AF wheel sets with replacement metal wheels (both insulated and “pick up wheels”), from S Helper Service (pull up http://www.showcaseline.com/ and click on “parts” and then “wheelsets”). If you label and save the original wheelsets, you can “restore” the trucks by reinstalling the originals if you wish to sell the items.
The new wheelsets will result in a better tracking, smoother running car that will allow you to run longer trains.
The folks at S Helper are very helpful and will answer any questions you have if you email them. I have never been disappointed with any of their products.
Thanks for the Tips guys! I milled down a few gondola wheel sets to mimic a “needle point” and added some silicon grease to the cast trucks. To eliminate the wobble I created a ‘jig’ to mill a 45 degree chamfer equally on all sides. The results was astounding! I was able to pull 25 cars on straight and level track with an older ‘small motor’ 312 and a 322 for a half hour with no over heating, only 14 of these cars were modified. I also made a test track to compare ‘free rolling’ of these cars. I use gargraves track right now because of its looks,flexibility, and low cost (around 4.00 for a 3 foot sec), but I noticed each car rolled twice as far when pushed down the track with approximately the same force. I did limit the modifications to common cars, like the 803’s, 922’s, the orange Illinois central cars, 929’s, 921’s and a few gondola’s.
It really makes a difference when you can pull a long train in freight. Now to pull out the ole’ 336!
I will investigate new wheel sets for the pass sets and higher dollar cars thanks again for the tip.
Since buying the Ameritrains 3/16-scale trucks won’t be an option anymore, those S-Helper trucks have me thinking about buying and re-gauging some of those to put under Marx 3/16 cars that are missing trucks. The price sure is good.