Body mounting MTLs on 89' flats

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I am wotking on lowering and detailing MTL 89' flats. I don;t have a working layout right now so I cant experiment with radii. Does anyone know if a body mount 2004 coupler will alow the car to negoshiate 15" curves? I plan on a minimum 18-22", but may get stuck with some tight curves on hidden staging.

[ljudice]

Dan,  just wondering - when I put my BLMA flats next to an MTL flat - is the MTL flat correctly proportioned width-wise and sill height size?  Or was there some dimensional liberty taken for manufacturing?

I'm on the fence - thinking that my (2000's) intermodal trains can use the BLMA flats, BLMA spine cars and then Kato, DI and Athearn well cars - and live without the MTL flats rather than fix them.

 

[daniel_leavitt2000]

They are just about the right width. The height is off.

[Catt]

Daniel, I have body mounts on my Con Cor autoracks and the tightest curve I have is one 15" curve because I could not go wider wider.The cars take it with no trouble.I would rather have a 18" there but it was a choice of the 15" or no track at all.

I need a gross of Craig's 100 ton trucks and probly close to that in the 70 ton class (rollerbearing of course).

Oh and I plan on lowering my MTL and Con Cor flats.

[davefoxx]

I am wotking on lowering and detailing MTL 89' flats. I don;t have a working layout right now so I cant experiment with radii. Does anyone know if a body mount 2004 coupler will alow the car to negoshiate 15" curves? I plan on a minimum 18-22", but may get stuck with some tight curves on hidden staging.

Daniel,

I body-mounted couplers on some MTL flats and auto racks by popping the piece out of the underside at each end that includes the stirrups.  I body-mounted the coupler to that piece on each end and snapped the part back in.  As long as the screw is cut flush with the top of that part, it will snap right back in.  Done in just mere minutes.

By the way, I ran these on my HCD layout, which had curves down to 12-3/4" radii.  Fifteen inch curves will be no problem.  In fact, I remember performing an experiment where I ran an MTL auto rack next to an IM two-bay covered hopper that also had body-mounted couplers.  There were no derailments, despite the huge difference in overhang in the curved trackage.

Unfortunately, I don't have these cars anymore.  However, if Lee checks in, I gave him one of my MTL auto racks, and he could probably share a picture showing the body-mount.

DFF

[nkalanaga]

The height didn't bother me, so I body mounted mine the easy way.  Take the truck off, shorten the coupler arm, and glue the coupler to the floor with contact cement or silicone caulking.  If you want to, you can narrow the arm to clear the wheels, remove the guide pins to allow the truck to swing, and glue it in that way.  It's more work, but having the rear engage the bolster helps to hold the coupler in place.

Mine will take 16 inch curves with the narrowed arm, and at least 11 inch with it shortened.  The biggest problem is keeping it coupled to shorter cars, and the prototype had the same problem.   On a 16 inch curve it works best if the adjacent car is at least 50 ft long.  I imagine that would be the case with most body mount couplers, simply because of the end overhang on sharper curves.

[Ike the BN Freak]

There was an article in I believe Model Railroading magazine a few years back, the author kitbashed the MT flats to other styles, such as Z and channel sides.

He lowered his and body mounted Z scale couplers.

[bbussey]

DFF's method is the preferred one, with both MTL TOFCs and auto racks.  Both models must be lowered to have a proper appearance when coupled with recently tooled BLMA, Trainworx and Red Caboose models that stand at the proper height over the rail top.  The positive about the four MTL models (one TOFC/COFC, three auto racks)  is that there are no height-compression issues, so lowering them does not drop the top of the roofs below where it should be.

The cars can be lowered while retaining the truck-mounted 1019 couplers, since there no longer are oversized pizza-cutter flanges to deal with.  The knuckles in the auto racks should be changed to 2004 in order to shorten the distance between cars.  The couple box can be cut back to allow the proper clearance.