7mm American O scale Southern Pacific Motive Power and Rolling Stock

[Big Train James]

Hi Stephen,
I have gone back through the thread, and I don't think you ever mention whether you are going to pursue O scale in 5'-0" gauge or P48. It would make a difference in terms of what alternative trucks might be available.

You ask about plastic trucks in the appropriate style. I have no idea if a plastic Andrews truck is available, so somebody will have to weigh in on that one. With respect to brass trucks, I can think of three possibilities of the top of my head.

1) PSC offers a kit for a 50 ton Andrews truck. See the attached PDF. I presume that it is only offered in 5'-0" gauge. Also I'm confident that it will not feature ball bearings. The "current" price list, which has "Mar2017" in the title, shows the cost at $66 /pair. Frankly this doesn't present as the best alternative when considering the price to feature equation.

2) Rich Yoder Models has offered the 50 ton Andrews trucks in the past, in both 5'-0" gauge and P48 versions. He has also offered early and late versions of the truck, so you could get whichever one best suited your needs. These are very nice trucks, highly detailed and including the brake beams and levers. These also do not feature ball bearings, but they do use delrin bushings instead. The price per pair is incrementally less than the Protocraft trucks.

The problem is, they all appear to be currently out of stock. The website isn't totally clear to me, since some say reserve now, some say reserve now - sold out. Some just say sold out, etc. I know that Rich wants to continue to import the trucks, but he has indicated that the cost and hassle of importing product has gotten to the point where it's no longer practical. He would like to continue to bring in trucks even if he stops import rolling stock or locos.

You would have to contact him to see what inventory he actually has on hand, but I would keep expectations low.

3) Protocraft is the last option I can think of. He lists the 50 ton Andrews in both OW5 and P48, but the OW5 version is currently showing as out of stock. P48 is in stock at $52.95 per pair. These are also very nice trucks, highly detailed like the Yoder version, but including ball bearings. If you are planning on staying with 5'-0" gauge, you will need to contact them and ask about future availability.

Beyond these three options, I don't know of anything that is available that would be better than the trucks that are already on the car. Somebody might know of other vendors. I'm much more focused on modern stock, things with roller bearing journals, so my knowledge of older truck varieties is limited.

Good luck!
Jim

 

[Stephen]

Hi Stephen,
I have gone back through the thread, and I don't think you ever mention whether you are going to pursue O scale in 5'-0" gauge or P48. It would make a difference in terms of what alternative trucks might be available.

Good luck!
Jim

Morning Jim,

Many thanks for your post - to confirm I'm going down the 'easy' option and sticking with 5' gauge O scale rather than P48 - I have a fair bit of British O gauge, so being able to run both 'collections' on one track will be advantageous for me......and in all honesty with the slow progress of my modelling at the best of times, I doubt I'd ever see anything run if I had to start building my own track work.

I'll make contact with Rich and see what his future stance is on importing things. I'm in no immediate rush to replace the trucks so I'd like to think we might even see a change in the $/£ exchange rate in the future.......for the better!

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[Big Train James]

Stephen,
I've just remembered that San Juan do plastic trucks. Some are kits, some are RTR. They seem to be nicely detailed. San Juan does not currently list an Andrews truck for separate sale, but they do list some freight cars that claim to feature Andrews trucks. It might be worth an inquiry to see if they do in fact have Andrews trucks available. It would seem illogical to produce an item but then limit opportunities to sell it.

 

[JasonD]

Stephen
I have a pair of plastic Athearn Andrews trucks in the for sale shoe box. Not original Athearn packet, but in as new condition. Umm, er ... £10/pair inc postage. Aaah, a bit less to carry to Winchester?

 

[Jordan]

The body is fantastic, but as other forum members have stated the trucks are extremely overscale…..

Are they really so bad? Most comments I've seen to do with Atlas trucks and 'overscale' are that the older trucks have thicker sideframes - not that apparent in a side-on view, and they're over scale width too because that's the nature of "0W5" anyway, but again, not apparent from side-on. Personally I wouldn't be in a rush to replace them, just my choice, influenced by cost, and also the fact I like the rotating bearing caps on the 'modern' trucks. My gripe there is the 3-rail legacy whereby Atlas took the bolster off the car and on to the truck, otherwise I'd use them on my Weaver boxcars too!!

 

[JasonD]

Jordan's right, thinning the early Atlas sideframes is noticeable with the right viewpoint. To lower the ride height for use with traditional 2-rail cars try turning the truck bolster upside down to lose the blob and if you are a perfectionist ease the countersunk screwheads into the plain holes now apparent on the bolster where it fastens onto the sideframe, or use a different Chinese screw, thin cheesehead?.

The Athearn trucks are not overscale. The bolsters are too long for true 4'8 1/2" track gauge and I have a few P48 w/m replacements. They came in four styles: archbar, Andrews, Bettendorf and (fixed) roller bearing. All for 33" wheels, moulded in slippery Delrin-type plastic with very low friction for the mild steel axles to rotate easily in the sideframes. The plastic is not keen on thin paints and the wheels, if used under a frt car that's too light pick up goop quite easily. InterMountain metal wheels are an easy replacement. I think IM must have forgotten my order for a lot of wheelsets so I'll give them a call!
Jason

 

[Overseer]

As a comparison between the Atlas trucks and Athearn trucks -

Atlas on left, Athearn on right. Both fitted with P48 wheels but no other changes.





The Athearn journal boxes are much closer to scale and have detail. The Atlas ones are too big and just dumb. They have tiny writing cast on the frames but I would prefer the shape to be right. In my view Athearn trucks look quite acceptable, especially if brake gear and the inside half of the journal boxes are added, while the Atlas trucks will never look right. Some of the Atlas roller bearing trucks look OK - the journals are closer to scale than on the solid bearing trucks.

 

[Stephen]

Many thanks for everyone’s suggestions so far regarding Andrew’s Trucks. I’ve taken Jason’s offer of the Athearn examples, so will get them fitted in due course,

whislt I don’t expect to have a massive number of box cars, the Atlas Trucks were just a tad too course for my eyes, so hopefully the Athearn trucks will make that slight difference. I‘ll probably aim to change the coupling as well and add Kadees.

I honestly didn’t realise there was so many different types of AAR 1937 Box cars, what with different doors, ends, ladders etc. I’ve purchase Protocraft SP ‘overnight’ transfers for both the Black and Silver liveries, so intend on ‘tarting’ two of my box cars up in each respective livery. Whilst I’m not going to go down the route of changing the ends, I will look at obtaining 8 rung ladders, and modify the doors. I had hoped that I could get a few spare doors from Protocraft, but Norm advised that those doors have now sold out and there won’t be any more…

so my next plan is to take the door included in the kit and ‘simply’ fill in the grooves which have the rivets present…….



the latches will no doubt be different, so I’ll see if I can modify them to look similar, but even if these are not spot on, at least the door will be closer to the prototype than what’s included in the kit.
cheers,

Stephen

 

[Rob R]

Stephen,
If you have a friend with a 3D printer then this young lady in Austria has a few useful 1/48 Boxcar details free to download that may be of some use:-

1/48 boxcar bits

Rob

 

[JasonD]

Sarah Griessenboeck contributes regularly to the Fb group 2-Rail O Scale & Proto:48 Model Railroading she's using 3D technology where needed on latches, etc, free downloads to use. Bah, new technology, can I get rid of all these damn whitemetal castings first purrleeze.

Only a few years ago O-scalers had boxes of files, etc, now we have boxes with keyboards, full of fellow enthusiasts with solutions. Look what happens, do you remember those pavement machines with holes where the animals' heads pop up and you have to hit them with a hammer. You don't? Well just try and keep up with all that's happening in O-scale. Start a Zoom group ... who said that?

Must dash, got to go in the garage again see if I can find any Loco WorkShop 6ft boxcar doors, just in case. Before I do, the angle of drop on those truck frames are different. The Atlas angle is steeper, mistake or prototype manufacturer's design difference? 50-, 70-, 100-ton trucks? Oh hang on, Detox by Strapping Young Lad just on.
Jason

 

[Jordan]

Nurse??!! Fetch Uncle Jason his tablets, please?

 

[JasonD]

I like the black, chewy ones with a bit of a screw thread on them. Anyway, those Atlas truck sideframes Overseer showed us are dire.

Atlas picked up models from various sources if you can do a pic of the whole thing that would be interesting. The journal could at least do with a square profile to represent the lifting cover and the hinge on top. The China versions are better, I'll try for a pic.

Jason

 

[Stephen]

So here is the reason for the change of trucks on the Atlas box van - as you can see the trucks are almost flush with the side of the body…



The limitations of a camera phone don’t give the trus perspective of depth, but it’s very noticeable that the Atlas trucks protrude a lot further than the IM trucks.

 

[JasonD]

Reason for post: someone gave me a bag of redundant Atlas/Roco Bettendorf sideframes and bolster plastic castings.

The rambling bit: the wheelsets were twixt scale and 3-rail. Atlas did produce some metal RP25 replacements (whitemetal wheels??), but .... The plastic was styrene (early Airfix kits) for everything except the (??)-steel axles, with rounded-off ends, which rode directly in the styrene holes. Offering these to old boys in O was predictably daft and usually meant the trucks being replaced.

OK, I too am bored by this rambling and will finally get to the point: the axle-box covers on these styrene castings are pretty nice and if anyone would like to try cutting the 8 plastic covers off, filing 8 Atlas/China journals smooth and gluing the replacement covers on, let me know.

OK, OK, you're a generous lot, so sometime in the future a cup of tea, no sugar and a modest cake for me in exchange for your address if I don't have it already (PM) and the 2 plastic truck frames.
Jason

 

[Stephen]

So……this side project has manifested itself into something slightly larger than planned…..after the initial purchase of a single IM 1937 AAR Box Car, I now have ten…..plus the Atlas Box car mentioned above….

I’ve started off just building the above two ‘straight out the box’, although they await metal IM wheel sets - hopefully Jason D will be getting these in soon! I’ve added KaDee 745 couplers, and in due course they will be primed, then repainted, and numbered/lettered in SP livery using Protocraft decals.

I honestly didn’t think I get this into this project, and I’ve spent probably more time that I can afford getting to know about all the different variations of AAR 1937 box cars.…. Thus out the eight other IM box car kits I’ve got, two fit the bill when it comes to corners to be converted into B-50-24s and decaled as SP ’Overnight’ versions - one in black and one in silver. Archer rivets have been ordered, but I’m having trouble ordering Des Plaines Hobbies 8 rung ladders. Has anyone else had experience in ordering with them?

As for the remaining box car kits, one will be in ATSF ‘El Capitan’ livery, and another in T&NO livery, which fits the bill seeing as it has 7-Panel Creco/Superior doors.

The ‘curve balls’ of the rake/cut will be one in Canadian Pacific Livery box car, and another in Atlantic Coast Line livery. i honesty don’t know whether vehicles of either company would have made it into SP territory, but my late father worked for Canada Martime ( container shipping subsidiary of CP) and before that Atlantic Container Line (ACL) - nothing to do with Atlantic Coast Line, but they share the same abbreviation. So these two are a bit of a tribute to the old man, who’s fault it is that I spend so much time involved with railways!

All other remaining kits will be tarted up as SP box cars. I think 11 is more than enough, but I wouldn’t mind getting hold of an IM double door 1937 AAR Box car, seeing as this could gain an SP ‘automobile’ livery.

Next acquisition (although no hurry) is a caboose…..

cheers,

Stephen

 

[Rob R]

I tried to order a few S scale bits from Des Plaines a few months ago and the online system just didn't work at all.
A direct email did the trick and then sent the card detals in 2 seperate emails after the initial contact was made.
Bits turned up a week and a half later...
Rob

 

[JasonD]

BTW Stephen, that Atlas truck close-up in post #73 is an original China-style. They took a lot of criticism like yours about the overall width of the truck and the current versions are thinner.

Also, that's an original coupler, now replaced by Atlas with a Kadee lookalike. Even I still don't believe what I say next: the early China-built couplers appear to use or duplicate the Roco-spec couplers from the 70s. Kadees have a very subtle angle between the head and shaft and Atlas/Roco copied the prototype ... everything straight. With the larger than prototype Kadee head, especially on 8xx, you get interference(!).

I snip 1/16" (1.6mm !) off the fixed part of the coupler and resmooth it. Fixes the problem, although an easier supply of Kadee 7xx couplers over here would probably be sensible FOR THE EARLY ATLAS STOCK (trim that uncoupler bar while your drilling new holes for the Kadees and making shims for height and ... ).
Jason

 

[Stephen]

Although a few more of the box cars have been built, and one put into primer, the main focus has been on obtaining all the parts required to complete the more challenging builds.

Archer Transfers have been sourced, along with a large selection of Protocraft Transfers for SP/T&NO/ATSF etc. I also picked up a few of their morton roof walkways thinking that they would be suitable for the Overnight box cars......alas looking further into the detail, these cars has the Apex walk ways.....

So, another trawl of the internet and Precision Scale Co do an apex Walkway which would be a good fit. I've emailed them, but alas no response. The website is live, but price lists date from 2018 or before - does anyone know if they are still trading?

Cheers,

Stephen

 

[PhilH]

Precision Scale parts are now being sold by P.F. & S Railway Supply, who don't seem to have a website but sell on Ebay.
This is a link to their Apex Walkway in HO scale, but they don't appear to list one in O scale:

Plano #191 (Walkway Kit) 40' Boxcar Roofwalk Apex - Slotted Pattern | eBay

It might be worth contacting them via Ebay to see if they have an O scale version.

 

[JasonD]

Des Plaines picked up a lot of Plano O-scale parts thanks to the late Ron Sebastian, they're probably on their website. I've got one or two for upgrading my Weaver solids, etc.
I will have a parts tray of etched brass walk odds and ends made over here at Winchester.
Jason