Scale Trains Carbon Black Hoppers are SHIPPING

[ridinshotgun]

I got my four Sid Richardson Cars in the mail today and the cars themselves are great with lots of detail.

But..... I am highly discouraged that with all four cars not a single one had a set of wheels that were in gauge.  Every single one is too big.  Some a little some a lot.  So not really ready to run out of the box.

While I don't mind swapping out wheelsets I was hoping that a car a this price would be ready to run and not require having to spend additional money to make them run reliably.

I really hope this is some teething problems in n scale since this is their first rolling stock release (and it is a nice looking car no one else makes) but I would have hoped something like this would have been caught with the preproduction samples.

[Chris333]

Aren't they members here?
@scaletrains

[basementcalling]

So which 4727 Road names are most common out west? Pacific Coast towards Denver and Cheyenne?

[bobdobbs]

Super well detailed cars, the smallest lettering is a wee bit hard to read under magnification.  The details on the trucks, particularly the depiction of the roller bearings is new to n scale as far as I know, very nice.  The wheels are so far out of gauge it is almost like the factory had the wrong specs or something for the wheelsets.  Anyhow, when you move the wheels out farther on the axle to bring them in gauge, the wheels rub on the truck frame, so you have an in gauge truck that won't roll.  Easy solution, replace with FVM 33" .540' axle wheelsets, problem solved, and also think about the additional expense of doing this to a $31.99 car. 2 of these is plenty for me. Scale Trains sending purchasers replacement FVM 33' wheelsets would make me like these "RTR" cars alot more.

[Mark5]

The details on the trucks, particularly the depiction of the roller bearings is new to n scale as far as I know, very nice. 

Do you mean that the bearing caps rotate when the truck "rolls"? That's wild!

Scale Trains sending purchasers replacement FVM 33' wheelsets would make me like these "RTR" cars alot more.

BobDobbs, aren't the wheels on these 36"?

Mark

[C855B]

Do you mean that the bearing caps rotate when the truck "rolls"? That's wild!

No! The detailing is very good, much better than, say, MTL.

I don't know what the prototype is, but the wheels that came with the ScaleTrains cars are 33" - I just measured.

Tweaking the sideframes helped with rolling characteristics, but they're still not free-rollers by any means. There is definitely too much pressure on the axle tips. I may try a trick that @Lemosteam showed me, using the smallest Dremel round burr to clean out the socket. But not tonight, I'm beat.

I am becoming increasingly nervous about the amount of work these are taking to be reasonable runners. The detailing is quite intense (and quite good!), but as I found out with my turbines, oh-so-fragile. The more messing around I do, the more likely I'm going to break something off, or pop something off and lose it.

[Mark5]

I don't know what the prototype is, but the wheels that came with the ScaleTrains cars are 33" - I just measured.

Interesting and thanks, I just dug around a little - looks like 33" is the right size for the proto.

Mark

[bobdobbs]

Do you mean that the bearing caps rotate when the truck "rolls"? That's wild!

BobDobbs, aren't the wheels on these 36"?

Mark

No, that is why I wanted to read the small writing on the car ends-it does say 33" wheels, these are not 100 ton cars, at least the 2 i got are not.

[bobdobbs]

Do you mean that the bearing caps rotate when the truck "rolls"? That's wild!

BobDobbs, aren't the wheels on these 36"?

Markg

No, but the detail is there, denoting a rotating axle bearing.

[ai5629]

The Carbon Black cars are available at MB Kleins.  Get 'em while you can.

[coosvalley]

  Easy solution, replace with FVM 33" .540' axle wheelsets, problem solved

Not that easy of a solution, as these are not available currently, we had a whole thread about it.

[ridinshotgun]

While 33 wheels are out of stock a temporary fix that will allow the cars to be run are to use 28 or 36 wheels until the 33 sets come back into stock. Not correct but being temporary it can work and is what I had to do since I forgot I used all my 33 wheels.

Not that easy of a solution, as these are not available currently, we had a whole thread about it.

[Philip H]

I got my single 5750 CABX car yesterday.  Really nice detail, and while the knuckle coupler is big, its serviceable for now.  As to rolling - testing for that will occur Sunday.

[basementcalling]

The Carbon Black cars are available at MB Kleins.  Get 'em while you can.

$31 a pop. They'll trickle out slowly.

[jereising]

I was going to pick up a couple just because, and also because ST is in Tennessee, and am (was) looking forward to their T4 ES44s.  The reports here are bothering me.  Do I REALLY want to spend $32 on a car with truck issues?    The coupler boxes - well, I have some McHenrys running successfully, so that at least is not a deal breaker. 

I'd sure like for one of the the ST guys to let us know how those wheels/trucks got that way.  There are knowledgeable, experienced N scalers within a couple hours of their facility that would be happy to assist with product testing...all it would take is an ask...