I decided a while back to keep my HO Rivarossi 85ft streamliners instead of selling them and plan on using the “Rivs” in conjunction with my Walthers streamlined passenger cars. All will be Alclad-metalized and lettered for either the Seaboard Coast Line, Atlantic Coast Line, or Richmond Fredericksburgh & Potomac schemes (except for the metalized observation car, which is a Reading Crusader unit).
I would like to eliminate the annoying “gap” between the trucks and bolster as seen in these photos.
The Walthers trucks would look good the Rivs, but from my understanding, don’t fit due to the bolster location. I’m not looking for prototype exactness, but basically a Commonwealth 41 series truck that would be typical of Budds running on eastern U.S railroads as well as elimination of that dreadful gap.
Would greatly appreciate your suggestions and opinion. [;)][I]
I have got to try that Alclad, it really looks great.
As far as the trucks/bolsters, I would first measure the car height vs prototype and go from there. On my Rivarossi cars, I added body mounted couplers and metal wheels to the existing trucks while cutting off the truck mounted coupler box(that really helped improve reliable operation). I shimmed for the body mounted coupler boxes/Kadees. Anyway, get a set of the Walthers trucks which are good for picking up current for car lighting and with those and the measurements of the car, it becomes a matter of cut/chop/rebuild. From your photos, it looks like you’ll do a great job.
The problem with the RIvarossi trucks is that the kingpin is not centered on the truck, but rather is set back a bit. This is to allow the cars to negotiate tighter curves. LION thinks that if you want to use s better truck, you will have to rework the underfloor as well to reposition the king pin. At the same time you can loser the car and if your curves are wide enough, body mount the couplers.
The LION has a whole fleet of Rivarossi and Athearn pax cars, and him too was going to sell them, but figured they really were not worth all that much. Instead I will build a model of (NYC) Penn Station and just make a static display out of them. It will look just fine all lit up, and that will be that.
Richard already touched upon the issue, but the other critical measurement in this equation is coupler height. It’s been awhile since I fiddled with one of mine, so I’m not sure if lowering the ride height is going to cause issues with coupler height. If it doesn’t, then dropping the ride height has several solutions and is rather easy to do. If it puts your coupler height too low, then things get sticky, with a different set of possible solutions.
Eastern Car Works used to make some nice passenger trucks. Think they were sold to someone who continues making them, but can’t remember to who right now.
I’d definitely ditch the truck-mounted couplers for body-mounted ones, unless that’s the only way they can operate on your layout.
They look great, but are kits. I have always used Kadee 36" wheels for mine, and after using a truck tuner on them, they roll GREAT.
As far as the gap goes, I believe that the “Riv” cars sit a little bit higher than the Walthers cars. In the past I just filed down the bolster a little bit to achieve the correct height (Con Cor cars), and that worked well to eliminate the gap you are concerned about.
Edit: BTW, the TSP trucks that have the wheel sets included seem to be the Jay-Bee wheelsets. I quit ordering the ones with the wheels because I received quite a few sets that had “wobbly” wheels. The are good for lighting, though. They have brass axles which are of course insulated.
Yup as the prior posters have said there are several things going on simultaniously. Rivarossi wheels are generally a scale 28" (not counting the huge flage) so the trucks ride low. Switching to proper 36" wheels either in the Rivarossi frame or by replacing the whole truck will raise the car.
First thing I would do is check the roof line. If it is too tall or to short then adjust the bolster height. This could be hard or easy depending if you have elected to move the bolster up to accomodate a truck with a center mounting point. If the roof line is already the proper height or too low, I think you are stuck with the gap between body and truck.
Once the roof is the right height then worry about coupler height. It has been over a decade since I’ve done one of these conversions but I think the huge airspace between the truck and car body went away. One issue you will run into if a new kingpin is added is the ability of the truck to pivot 360 degrees. I always added some extra wires to limit the truck to about 30 degrees of rotation.
Of course you also realize if the mounting point is moved the car will require a larger radius curve to operate properly. Likewise moving from Rivarossi’s truck mounted couplers to body mounted will really increase the required radius for operation.
Thank you for the tips! I forgot to mention I had replaced all of my Rivs’ wheels with P2K 36" sets, including the units in the above photos. Now I see why my Rivs sit about a scale 4" higher than my Walthers units, lol [(-D]
I’m considering taking the TSP truck route, since it offers the option of the offset-bolster mount but my layout’s mainline is going to have 24" radius curves. I understand that Kadee produces a coupler box that allows a bit of “extra” swing. I’ll look that up.
Something that can help a little is using a coupler with the longest possible shank and just mounting it a bit further back on the body. That give it some more swing. I would recommend a Kadee #6 but they don’t make them anymore.
Once I replaced the wheelsets in my old Rivarossi/AHM cars with the accurate 36" wheels, I shaved down the bolster.* A more drastic bash would be to carve out an entire segment of the bolster area and find a way to either replace it with another product or elevate it. I say that because shaving the bolster and keeping it both level and perfectly flat is a bit of a challenge and it is easy to create a rather tippy looking car as a consequence.
Knowing that I would be running my cars on rather wide curves rather than the 18" radius curves that Rivarossi engineered for, makes the height spacing less critical for the trucks. I have not done so but changing to body mount couplers is not out of the question for me either but again my sharpest mainline curve is 38" radius.
Some years ago I was able to acquire a supply of “defective” Eastern Car Works kits at the Walthers showroom that include the floors and frames and if I ran into a retrofit problem with the Rivarossi cars I’d be tempted to try a bit of kitbashing with replacement floors. I think Eastern is no longer still around. Some of the floors look like they might need to have a warp corrected.
Train Station Products part # 461 is described on their website this way, and it too might offer some possibilities:
Passenger Car Detail Kit including 85 foot Passenger Car Frame/Floor. This kit contains many of the needed detail parts that were used on modern passenger cars. Included in this kit are various styles of air conditioning units, water tanks, wheel generators, battery boxes, propane tanks holders, etc. For use with Athabasca, AMB Laser Kits, Brass Car Sides, Concord Junction, Chicago Coach Works, Laser Horizons, Rivarossi corrugated Budd cars, Eastern Car Works, NKP Car, and other manufacturers’ passenger cars. There are enough parts for more than one car.
Dave Nelson
*Edit/modification to my posting: once I replaced the original
Thank you for the ideas guys! Even more choices to consider.
OK, based on this threads input, my hope is to be able to install replacement Commonwealth trucks, equipped with 36" wheels, that fit underneath shaved down bolsters that almost perfectly flat!
As well as to have a body mounted coupler box that’s recessed further inward for use with long shank couplers so that the cars may negotiate 24" curves!
Add to that, the coupler and body height need to match those of the Walthers cars.
Well…sounds like a workable plan with a bit of a challenge!
