OK meatheads, set your ExactRail calender for March 1st.

[Kisatchie]

I'm trying to locate massive quantities of the underslung Accymate trucks from Atlas to replace all the MTL trucks on my hobbers, gondolas and other "heavy" cars...

If you can body mount couplers on your Micro-Trains cars, I have 11 pairs of Atlas 100 ton trucks only (Accumates were cut off) for FREE. Just send me your mailing address and I'll get them out to you.


"Hmm... Kiz makes me pay
for my bananas..."

[GonzoCRFan]

Might want to compare the costs and details of the IM version first... both models represent the later 8-panel 5161s.

IM Trinity 5161, ~$16.50 a pop:


Etched metal roofwalk and roofwalk supports, including end supports,

ER Trinity 5161 ~$20 a pop:


Molded plastic roofwalk and roofwalk supports, note that none of the ER cars has the Plate C box either

But Intermountain botched the stirrup location, unless there were some prototype cars that had them offset from the ladders?



And will some of the ER cars leave their factory with the assembly/QC problems that can sometimes be seen on the IM covered hoppers?

Neither car is perfect, and unless the speculation of this being LBF tooling is true, then this is just a waste of dies that could have been used to make something else this scale really needs... :

[Glenn Poole]

From a post by Glenn Poole on the A-forum, they're using the same trucks Athearn had tooled (Athearn replaced the SDK trucks they originally used with another manufacturers trucks)... they don't roll worth a crap though... so either way you're replacing trucks or wheelsets. 

There really is no such thing as RTR is there?  ;D

What do you mean, Chuck?  Everything I get from you is allways RTR!!!!  Are you telling me that you check each and every item and tinker if necessary before you ship?  ;D

[Chulvis]

From a post by Glenn Poole on the A-forum, they're using the same trucks Athearn had tooled (Athearn replaced the SDK trucks they originally used with another manufacturers trucks)... they don't roll worth a crap though... so either way you're replacing trucks or wheelsets. 

There really is no such thing as RTR is there?  ;D

What do you mean, Chuck?  Everything I get from you is allways RTR!!!!  Are you telling me that you check each and every item and tinker if necessary before you ship?  ;D

Of course!  ;D

[TiVoPrince]

Tinker
is such a mild word.  I think caress and/or fondle would be more accurate terms for how my FRT shipments are handled...

[Sokramiketes]

Verta-Pac getting crunk...

[GaryHinshaw]

Holy smokes, look at the height of that sucker.  I thought RC solved the ride height problem on racks a few years ago.  Nice work on a solution, but it would have been nice if it had come that way...

-gfh

[Mark4]

Verta-Pac getting crunk...

Praise the lowered!

[Sokramiketes]

...but it would have been nice if it had come that way...

-gfh

Bingo.  I have enough interest to do this once more to my IC, and again if a RI car comes along, but that's about it.  Factory would have been nicer.

I carved off the air line and will work on hanging brass wire with etched lift rings next.  The carving helped the appearance of the flat itself, but really showed how high these cars are stock.

[Sokramiketes]

Verta-Pac getting crunk...

Praise the lowered!

Had to say it outloud before I got it.  Brilliant.   ;D

[Mark5]

good info on the Verts.



I want one of the IC versions, but aint willing to pay $34 for it.

Hope they still have a few by the time they get some distribution. If not, I'll live.

[wazzou]

Is this like the Micro-trains problem in that the cars are reduced in actual scale height to accomodate the coupler and truck operating characteristics?

So...in other words, after Mike has worked hard to make the car appear much nicer, he has in affect made the car to short?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Won't it lower to almost the same hight when you swap the proper 28" wheels on it? I was planning on that and using the underslung Accumate couplers from an Atlas 100T truck.

[Robbman]

Do the math and you'd get a heck no and a couple of uh-uhs on that...

Going to 28" wheels would net you 2.5 scale inches lower... or .015625"... which is .396875mm... or for the rounders... less than half a millimeter.

Skibbes car looks to be at least 2mm lower... if not more... which would be almost five times lower...


As an aside, while the new Acumates on the 100T trucks are completely underslung, the original Accumate were already underslung as well (i.e, the centerline of the coupler was higher than the centerline of the draft gear... note the one on the IC car in Skibbe's post)... so the height difference is actually smaller than one would think.  The biggest area of improvement on the new trucks was the lowering and shortening of the coupler box.

[Sokramiketes]

Is this like the Micro-trains problem in that the cars are reduced in actual scale height to accomodate the coupler and truck operating characteristics?

So...in other words, after Mike has worked hard to make the car appear much nicer, he has in affect made the car to short?

Eyeballing proportions, I'd say it doesn't have the MTL problem.  If Robb gets me some measurements I'll be happy to check though.