Trying to help a friend get some B@O passenger cars. He has Atlas snap turnouts so the radius in limited to 18". Saw some Rivarossi corrigated cars that are two axel trucks and what appear to be truck mounted couplers on ebay. My question is would these work?
I have the UP ones, they are awful. Too light and so they dump off the track. I can literally blow them over with a good breath. The truck mounted couplers are a pain to replace with coupler boxes as well.
Riverosi works fine on 18" Track. They do not look good, but they make the curve. That is why the couplers are on the trucks rather than on the carbody.
Operating in reverse through the curves will not work.
There are Kadee couplers that are made for this equipment.
ROAR
I’ve got a set of these, 3 coaches and a baggage car:
They will negotiate 18-inch curves, but just barely. I had to rebuild a 17 3/4 inch curve just for them.
I replaced the couplers, which are body-mounted but with a swing-arm coupler box. I just did the couplers, though, and the swing-arm is still there. I added lights, which involved replacing the trucks.
So to clarify, we are talking about Rivarossi (not IHC) full length streamlined passenger cars (not the “standard” Rivarossi passenger cars in the photo above), corrugated sides not smooth sides, two axle trucks not three axle,
The cars are underweight and benefit from having weight added over the trucks. The couplers are truck mounted and I suspect they have to be truck mounted to manage those 18" radius curves. There are knuckle type coupler adaptions available that can also be truck mounted, although frankly it is rather tricky not to have the couplers droop down lower than is correct. In fact substituting knuckle couplers for horn hooks is a bit tricky for an unsophisticted modeler (such as yours truly). Body mounted is best for a variety of reasons BUT only if you have broad curves.
If the couplers the cars come with are what your friend uses then they should be OK, with the caveat that added weight would be helpful and that they won’t back-up well. They might be slightly prone to derail.
On balance, the cosmetic advantages of full scale length can be quickly lost when you have sharp curves and snap track switches. With curves that sharp I’d look at the old “shortened” Athearn blue box streamlined cars or the Con-Cor smooth side streamlined cars (the Con Cor corrugated streamlined cars are full length or close to it). I don’t know if any of those come painted B&O. I do recall the Athearn shortened standard passenger cars in B&O paint.
Dave Nelson
I used to run dozens of Rivarossi cars with no problems, although my curves were broader.
McHenry makes a #52 direct replacement coupler:
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/McHenry-Couplers-HO-KS-IHC-RIV-4-Wheel-Coupler-p/mch-52.htm
Although I’m no fan of plastic couplers of any kind, these were the solution for Rivs. They made I believe a 51 and 53 for heavyweights and loco tenders respectively.
Add a little weight as Dave suggests and some 36" Kadee metal wheels (slightly bend the brake shoes out) and you’re good to go.
Good Luck, Ed
Thanks for the feedback, I looked at the Con-Cor 72’ smoothsides, and the sites had them on pre-order. I tried repeatedly to contact Con-Cor and heard a lot of outdated information, like the 2014 orders have been filled and Merry Christmas. I left a message but nada. My buddy is hot to trot on this so I’ll give these a try, add some weight and figure out the coupler situation as I go. At the least I think the first car could be converted to KD’s, and let the rest go for now.
I would still suggest against these, there is a lot of slop in the truck mounting. You can do way better for the same price, especially if they come with the plastic wheels.
If don’t mind the lack of interior detail, athearn blue box would work just fine. Fairly cheap at train shows, and run fine on 18" curves. Or, Tyco made some streamlined passenger cars which were designed for tight curves, those could work too.
Hello Florida Flyer,
Neat to communicate with someone that lives in Florida. Although the Rivarossi Budds are considered crude by today’s standards, imho, for the price on the used market they’re attractive and have great potential when it comes to hopping them up.
Two very easy and inexpensive ways to improve their tracking performance on 18" and 22" radius curves:
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After disassembling the car, fill the pockets in the floor with either BB pellets or Birdshot pellets. Smother them with ordinary Elmer’s Glue or light duty styrene cement. (Be careful if using stronger glues as too much will warp the sides of those underbody tanks-----ask me how I know, lol! [:P] ).
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Since your friend wishes to keep the stock Talgo trucks, remove the brake shoe clasps and replace the stock plastic axle/wheel sets with 36" metal axle/wheel sets from Intermountain. The Proto 2000 36" wheel sets fit well and are cheaper but currently out of stock at Walthers. Last time I checked the knuckle style couplers with springs are still available from McHenry.
In any case you’ll notice how smoothly the Rivarossi Budds roll with this simple upgrade. Below is one my Rivarossi units that I paint stripped, metalized with Alclad2, and decaled into the SCL scheme. The wheels sets are Proto 2000 and the floor’s pockets are filled with BB pellets. Shove this car with your hand and she’ll roll about 15 feet before stopping.
[quote user=“AntonioFP45”]
Hello Florida Flyer,
Neat to communicate with someone that lives in Florida. Although the Rivarossi Budds are considered crude by today’s standards, imho, for the price on the used market they’re attractive and have great potential when it comes to hopping them up.
Two very easy and inexpensive ways to improve their tracking performance on 18" and 22" radius curves:
-
After disassembling the car, fill the pockets in the floor with either BB pellets or Birdshot pellets. Smother them with ordinary Elmer’s Glue or light duty styrene cement. (Be careful if using stronger glues as too much will warp the sides of those underbody tanks-----ask me how I know, lol! ).
-
Since your friend wishes to keep the stock Talgo trucks, remove the brake shoe clasps and replace the stock plastic axle/wheel sets with 36" metal axle/wheel sets from Intermountain. The Proto 2000 36" wheel sets fit well and are cheaper but currently out of stock at Walthers. Last time I checked the knuckle style couplers with springs are still available from McHenry.
In any case you’ll notice how smoothly the Rivarossi Budds roll with this simple upgrade. Below is one my Rivarossi units that I paint stripped, metalized with Alclad2, and decaled into the SCL scheme. The wheels sets are Proto 2000 and the floor’s pockets are filled with BB pellets. Shove this car with your hand and she’ll roll about 15 feet before stopping.
[;)]
Easy answer…depends on how much of if I consider it to be fun! Since I had a sizeable fleet of Rivarossi’s some years back, rather than get rid of them, I thought I’d take on the challenge of fixing them up. Total “hands on” time to do this car was about 3 hours (not including dry time for paint products and decals since I typically walk away and do something else). Even with the humidity, the nice thing about painting ANYTHING in Florida is the fast dry/cure times.
Anyway, my answer was primarily intended to focus on the weight and tracking issue. I paid $5 for a box of BB pellets that lasted me several years that was more than enough to add weight to 12 Rivarossi units and a slew of freight cars.
For this car the McHenry couplers for the Talgos were $3 , and the P2K wheelset (pack) was about $7. Total time for weighting, coupler replacements, and wheel change outs does not even exceed 20 minutes. So without paint stripping, these cars are inexpensive and easy to hop up performance-wise.
Long story short, my intent was to show what can be done with a relatively inexpensive car that some modelers may view as having little potential.
Also what is the cost of finding Rivarossi to fix up on the used table at train shows vs $60 to $70 or more to buy new stuff? I have a number of Rivarossi and IHC passenger cars that I have fixed up, including re-painting for MEC and B&M. They run fine and look good.
In my opinion, full length passenger cars such as the Rivarossi models do not look realistic on 18" curves. The old Athearn “blue box” cars are the best alternative for 18" curves.
It would be better to use wider curves for passenger trains. If the layout is not yet started, I would choose a track plan with wider curves.
I run Rivarossi cars on 30" curves with no problems.
The cars have been modified with weight added.
Trucks were replaced with good quality trucks with the pivot point in the center of the truck. The pivot points in the car bottoms have been relocated to the correct place.
I installed Kadee long shank couplers directly to the car body with a realistic couping distance between cars.
Y’all have not seen the horrific paint application on at least the old Rivarossi UP models then. Truly dreadful. Overspray everywhere. Stripping and repainting is really the only option. Even then, you still have to add grab irons and everything else, and look at those chubby stepladders.
$70 or more is for top end Walthers Proto stuff. Their Mainline cars, which are far better than anything Rivarossi put out, are $25 from most online retailers.
Penny wise, dollar foolish, IMO.
I agree that 85ft Rivarossi (or any other brand) units don’t look good going around 18" radius curves BUT…if that’s what the modeler wants then he/she should go for it.
Personally although I’m working with 24" radius curves, I just can’t see myself using the Athearn shorties. I like the appearance of the Walthers, Rapido, and even the Rivarossi 85 footers. I spent too much time in my youth riding the classic prototype Budd units.
FieryTurbo, you make good points.
I’ve seen the units in the UP (and other schemes) and some of the finishes were not good. I think that may be part of the reason why a lot of hobby shops back in the 1980s were selling them at the $16-$18 range. But for the standards in those days, they weren’t too bad and a lot of us didn’t have much else too choose from (except for wallet crunching brass units).
I have one Walthers Mainliner on my worktable, waiting its turn for metalizing. It will be a “freelanced” SCL unit (Ok guys, go easy when hurling those tomatoes!)
The Mainline passenger cars are nice looking and come with the same interiors as the higher end Walthers Budds. However, one irony regarding the Mainliners is the “1970s Con Cor style” glazing while the “Old Tech” Rivarossi Budds have flush fitting windows! But, understandably, compromises had to be made to keep costs down.
I no longer purchase Rivarossi Budds since many of the older run “silver painted” Walthers Budd and Pullman Standard units show up on ebay in the $20 to $35 range.
Is your friend going to purchase those Rivarossi units you mentioned earlier? (Respectfully, not knowing his budget and modeling skill level) If he is capable of painting and decaling, I’d suggest to him that he purchase some older run Walthers units and refinishing them in the
While I have some Walthers and Branchline passenger equipment (and some Athearn and MDC, too), I’m a big fan of the Rivarossi cars.
I had a train of their smooth-sided lightweight cars (ballasted to about 8oz., but sold them, along with a couple of E-units:
The heavyweights are what I have now, and I got a lot of enjoyment detailing them:
They can also be made into pretty-decent wood-sided baggage cars…
…while the diner, shortened, makes a nice combine…
…and the Rivarossi combine works well as a doodlebug:
Wayne
Update on the passenger cars: Received the cars, they weighed only 2.75 oz. so I added 3.25 oz. of 3/8 in. nuts to bring the total weight to 6 oz. a tad light but I was happy with the outcome. Painted the nuts black so the were invisable to the eye. As Ed suggested, I got the McHenery #52 couplers, easy to install but had real issues with the cars staying coupled when I ran them on my layout with 30" curves. had to go back to the hornhooks. However the lead car with the #52 on it would stay coupled to the loco so it is now the transition car. Tried the cars on by friends layout and while most of the curves are greater than 18" the snap turnouts were still 18". Everything ran great, he is one happy camper. Once again thanks for the feedback.
What was the issue you were having with the #52 couplers? I have been using them on 22" and 24" radius without problems. Even though I’ve had no problems, I am still planning on adding weight and changing to metal wheels.