Fit & Finish Issues on MT Circus cars

[Nato]

   I removed an MT RB Circus livestock car and placed it on the rails t see how free rolling it was. It acted like the brakes were set. Turned it over rolled all the wheels on one truck, they were free rolling. The outer end wheels on the other truck were also very free rolling, but the center wheel set eventhough it was properly inserted did not want to roll. Closer examination revealed it was rubbing on the end of the Con Cor bolster pin (old hard to get split pins). I should have tried filing down the pin end just a scosh ,but decided instead the pin could be seated in the hole just a bit more. I removed the truck with pin and it's special for this conversion large plastic washer,and noticed the hole was crudely reamed out. Got a Exacto and scraped just a fraction around the rim. Whoops! when reinserting the split pin the hole was now too large and the pin would not stay in place. My crude solution to fix the damage was to take the roof off, take the insert nut shaped part offered in truck parts, that was originally designed to be press fitted from the inside into old Con Cor metal under frames to make their bolster holes fit Kadee (MT) pins. I was able to find a old (very old ) Kadee pin with the long thin end put it on the truck, re add the large plastic washer and carefully press everything through the bolster hole from the outside. It is a very loose fit, but does not droup out and the will run. No problems with any of the other identical cars. My final fix will probably be to drill a hole in a piece of styrene that the split pin will stay fixed in , then cut it to fit over the hole in the car floor and cement it from the inside. Then try reinstalling the truck as intended. The Con Cor baggage car was clearly not made for usuing with six wheel trucks. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[SkipGear]

Nate,
 It is a common problem with many of the cars. It is just an issue of flashing on both the pin and the axle hitting and causing problems. I would guess over half of my cars have this issue. It just takes a second to pop ou the center axle and trim the flash on both and the end of the pin.

 While you are at is, get out a small screwdrivers and compress the couplers to their shortest length. The cars will still negotiate as small as an 11"R and they look so much better.

[Nato]

  Maybe I have just been lucky, but all my other cars have had no tracking problems.                            Nate Goodman (Nato).

[Bob Bufkin]

Speaking of tracking/coupler problems, on another forum there are complaints about the Kato Broadway Limited cars uncoupling.  I've had no problems, has anyone here?

[altohorn25]

I have also had problems with the center axle not rolling as well.  As stated previously, the easiest solution is to just remove the center axle.  As Nate said above, the bigger problem that I have had is the bolster pin holes being VERY poorly punched out.  I also tried to fix this with the same result as Nate (the hole was punched poorly and when I tried to clean it out, the whole hole pretty much fell out and I had to use the other method of attaching the truck to the body).  

For those who are concerned with prototypical accuracy, the following are the biggest flaws I've found with the cars:  None of the Ringling cars have skirts, so they need to be removed on the coaches (not an easy task without messing up the lettering).  The window patterns on the coaches are too uniform as the Ringling cars are former sleepers from various source railroads (almost all the cars on the real train are slightly different).  These two problems don't bother me as much as the fact that all the sleepers on the Ringling train ride on 4 wheel, roller bearing trucks, not the 6 wheel heavyweight friction bearing trucks that are supplied.  The only cars on the train that have 6 wheel trucks are the generator car and the animal cars.

All that being said, the flats, container car, and rack car (the show only used one rack car on each train) are nicely done.  The artwork is pretty spot-on.  Too bad you can't get that by itself to do more cars.

I wish MT would have included more of the small 20' containers as the flats were loaded full from end to end with very little space between them.  Also, in the flat runner pack, I'm not sure what the heck the big hunk of plastic load is supposed to be (tent poles maybe....too bad they don't use tents anymore).

Nate

[SkipGear]

I was adjusting my stock cars last night and had one that even cleaning the flashing would not allow it to roll. It turned out that there is a spacer washer used between the truck and the car body. This car had the washer installed between the pin and the truck instead of between car and the body. That extra washer thickness was enough that it wouldn't clear, even with grinding the head of the pin down.

I'm going to play with this set, probably replace the trucks and put a view block in the middle of the sleeper/coach, I may even shave the skirts. The first thing to do is make some more wagons. One of the guys I work with is a circus nut. He scratch built an entire 1950's version of the RBBB train in HO. He is now in N and we were are working on using some cheap Model Power 20' containers as the basis for a kitbash of some more wagons and containers.

[altohorn25]

Forgot about that washer; I removed them all and the cars run much better now.

Here's what I've done for more trailers (wagons)

Found these resin 20' containers on ebay:

[altohorn25]

Flipped them over, added two layers of flat styrene for depth, then some half round for wheels.  They match the MT trailers pretty well:

[altohorn25]

I'll leave some of them waffle sided and I'll sand some of them down so they're smooth sided.  The problem of course will be the decals.  Not sure what to do about that one yet.......

Here's a fully loaded flat.  The second trailer from the right I've sanded down so it's smooth sided.

Nate

[Nato]

       I plan to replace the six wheel trucks on the sleeper/coach cars with the correct four wheel trucks since that is what the prototype cars have. I'an not sure if I will run this train as I already have a Col Carstens Circus Train I created many moons ago that I have run at shows (see my tribute post to Hal Carstens) many months back also we will need many more cars if we even want to run a proto leingth train (see my more recient post on this) ,but I do think it is nice of MT for trying to model this unique prototype train  even if there are some flaws . Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake, Utah.

[Denver Road Doug]

Nate, nice job on the containers!

At least one e-tailer is reporting that MTL will be releasing a set of 6 circus wagon loads very soon, so keep an eye out for those.

[altohorn25]

MT released 6 packs of the wagons for this month; life is good.

I've been working on my coaches as well.  I'll post some photos when I get home this evening.  Cut the skirts off and swapped out the trucks for the 4 wheel ones.  They turned out pretty good.  Got a bunch of 89' MT flats to paint and decal as well.  Should be a cool train when I get done.

Nate

[seusscaboose]

Speaking of tracking/coupler problems, on another forum there are complaints about the Kato Broadway Limited cars uncoupling.  I've had no problems, has anyone here?

i had an issue with the Daylight set... went to the other couplers (kinetic) and it worked fine.


havent had an issue with #29, i think i remembr a conversation that Kato went back to the old couplers that were working (essentially abandonning the couplers they used on the Daylight)

[Roger Holmes]

Altohorn25--What decals are you using on the 89' flats?

Thanks,

Roger a/k/a Drummer51

[altohorn25]

I ordered some micro scale alphabet sets.  Still waiting for them to come in the mail.  For the flats, you only need the reporting marks and the car number (RBBX#####) so I should be pretty easy.  I'll let you guys know if the railroad roman that I ordered is close to the factory lettering.

Nate