Bachmann Ore Cars

[keeper]

I just found out that there will be new ore cars from Bachmann available at the end of the year.
DMIR is one of the road names. Would that be correct? And what's the model's prototype?

Thomas

[Mark5]

Discussion of this model announced at the NMRA show mixed in here:

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=42487.255

[3DTrains]

The closest would be the early SP tight-bottom cars built for Kaiser Steel.

Cheers!
Marc - Riverside

[keeper]

Thanks Mark5 and Marc.

[Missaberoad]

DMIR owned no cars even remotely similar to these Bachmann cars. All of the DMIR cars were 24' bottom dump cars.

Atlas' B&LE ore car is pretty close to the DMIR cars. The end sills need to be shortened, and a solution for the couplers is needed but detail wise they are close.

Taconite hauler Reserve Mining (later Northshore) had cars similar to the Bachmann cars.

[nkalanaga]

The couplers for Atlas ore cars are easy.  MT 903/905 Z/Nn3 couplers work fine.  Square off the outer end of the end sill, add a piece of 0.030(?) x 1/8 styrene strip to the bottom of the end sill, extending back to the body bolster, for a shim, and mount the coupler with the back of the box against the body bolster.  You can add a filler piece on top of the shim, between the end sill and the body bolster, if you like.

With the right shim, the center of the coupler will be at the right height, and the 903s work fine with standard MT N couplers.  The only problem is that the uncoupling pins will be too short for magnetic uncoupling, but I don't have any magnets anyway.

[MK]

Would you happen to have a close up picture of this?  Thanks!

[Missaberoad]

The couplers for Atlas ore cars are easy.  MT 903/905 Z/Nn3 couplers work fine.  Square off the outer end of the end sill, add a piece of 0.030(?) x 1/8 styrene strip to the bottom of the end sill, extending back to the body bolster, for a shim, and mount the coupler with the back of the box against the body bolster.  You can add a filler piece on top of the shim, between the end sill and the body bolster, if you like.

With the right shim, the center of the coupler will be at the right height, and the 903s work fine with standard MT N couplers.  The only problem is that the uncoupling pins will be too short for magnetic uncoupling, but I don't have any magnets anyway.

The difficulty arises when you cut down the end sills to match Lake Superior ore cars. On the few I've played with before, I was able to create dummy couplers with cut down Accumates... When I get around to the project again I think a solution with Tru scale couplers will work much better.

[nkalanaga]

Yes, if you cut the end sills completely off, as required for your prototype, even the 903s are too long.  If you're using dummy couplers anyway it might be worth the trouble to use drawbars.  In my case, I needed to be able to switch the cars, so that was out.  The 903 boxes can be shortened, so the end sill can be cut back further than I did, but you still won't get prototype spacing.  If you want that, MT's new couplers are probably the only option.


These are old cars.  The one on the left is an original, from the late 1960s, and the one on the right was relettered with Walthers decals sometime in the 70s.  They're in my "standby" collection, but were easier to get to than the working ones.