I’m looking at bidding a fair size group of older HO freight car, on e-bay. The cars of all types are from the mid 70’s to present. Are the cars updatable with present day couplers, and steel wheeled and sprung trucks? R. Staller
anything is possible but is it cost effective? if the bulk of those cars are ultra cheap like tyco, early bachman, etc. then i would say they are not worth the trouble and expense.
of course, i am still having “sticker shock” since i started in this hobby when an Athearn Blue Box kit was less than 2 bucks.
i would liken it to restoring a vintage chevy as opposed to a pinto. the pinto was a piece of junk when it was new and becomes a restored piece of junk.
grizlump
Sure, it’s possible. In some cases, it’s very easy, and in others there’s more to it than meets the eye. And yes, he’s right. There is the question of cost-effectiveness.
I started back in the hobby 4 years ago, after a 40-year absence. I had boxes of old HO trains from the early 1960s. I took some old Athearn cars, removed the horn-hook couplers, dropped in Kadee #5s and put them on the track. Just that simple, as those old Athearn coupler pockets are exact matches for the #5. The trucks had plastic wheels, but they are still servicable, or you can buy new wheels and replace those.
Other cars are more difficult. In particular, a lot of my old cars, and some I’ve found that were not so old, have truck-mounted “Talgo” couplers. These perform poorly, particularly when backing, although they will help get long cars around tight curves. But, for those 40-foot boxcars and short hoppers, I wanted body-mount couplers. More work, sure, but with a few simple tools and Kadee’s “draft gear boxes” the job has become routine.
One way that I upgrade my older freight cars is by adding the A-Line stirrup steps and better trucks. A good weathering job will make a cheep plastic car look great. MRR has weathering articles in past issues that will help you a lot here. Here is a Tyco car that I had added these details to including a better roof walk.
It’s hard to say without more information. If they’re decent quality cars from Athearn or MDC they won’t be all that different from what’s those lines offer now. If they don’t already have Kadee couplers (which go back to the sixties IIRC) you can easily add them. The trucks and or wheelsets can be replaced if you choose to.
However decorating of cars back then was often inaccurate and poorly done, white lettering on a brown boxcar was often semi-transparent like it was done with milk rather than paint or ink. Most “serious” modellers - if they used plastic kits at all - bought undecorated ones and painted and decaled them themselves.
If they’re “train set” cars from Tyco, Life-Like or Bachmann with truck-mounted couplers, it’s going to take a lot more effort to bring them ‘up to snuff’.
Of course I suppose they could be wood craftsman kits someone built - or brass !! [:)]
gl9:
Only because people are always told the Pinto was junk. A lot of people in the car hobby just don’t think outside the box. There are “approved” vintage cars and the rest just aren’t popular. Of course, the good thing about this is that if one is an outside-the-box thinker, the hobby is a lot cheaper.
I used to work with a Pinto fan. He probably still drives his. It’s actually a neat little car.
This is a lot like that. I bought a bunch of train show Life-Like cars and ran 'em, Tootsie Roll schemes and all. Didn’t bother me a bit. The train crew isn’t really that concerned with who owns the car they’re switching, as long as they can read the marks, and as long as they match the paper, so why should I? [:)] I think I paid about a buck or two for single cars (these were SS wood cars in fairly subdued schemes) and maybe fifty cents a car for the mixed lots (which is where the Tootsie Roll stuff et cetera came in). Since then, I’ve put Scenemaster snap-in couplers and Kadee no. 5s on them, added some pennies for weight, and better-rolling Tichy wheels (temporarily borrowed from archbar truck kits, until I assemble them all.) They got me running fast.
The Scenemaster couplers, which practically drop in (Kadee has an adapter for this), eliminate a lot of the problem with backing Talgo-trucked cars.
So, the question is, is it more important to have fun, or to do everything The Right Way? If you can have fun running trainset cars, then run trainset cars, and don’t worry about the critics. Let 'em sit in their armchairs and dream of their ideal railroads while you run yours!
I think I’ll stick to replacing the couplers, weathering, and just replace the axel sets with new ones with steel wheels. Some of these cars will probably get on the main, some may be just yard fillers, and scenery. Thanks for all the info guys. R. Staller