Iron Horseman
Well-Known Member
It is very sad when someone's model railroad empire is lost when they pass from this world. Most recently the museum received a donation from one such situation. None of the children wanted to deal with their father's trains so they just ripped them up and dumped them at the museum. Personally, for a contribution of a hundred bucks I walked off with a box of mostly flat cars (70 or so). These are the cars that I used to make into my Christmas train for the office this year.
All of them needed work. I took apart each car, cleaned it, fixed broken parts like the stirrup, painted them, reamed the trucks, replaced the wheel sets, repaired the coupler pockets, and coupler springs etc. As I worked through each car I got more and more sad. Some trends became apparent. Many of the original Athearn BB coupler pockets had been replace with Kadee boxes screwed to the cars metal weight. As most HO scale users know the weight does not fit snug it has a bit of slop from side to side. That and having the Kadee coupler boxes not exactly centered made the hooks have a funny angle to them, and the trucks would sometimes bump. Then there were no washers on the bolsters to bring the couplers up to the right height. True that means they all align, but it also means the little uncoupling wire hanging down is too low. I could see how the prior owner had bent them up, but then they had a funny cup to them. Finally, the Kadee #5 brass springs were on the underside of the coupler rather than the top. For non-HO scale people, the coupler spring provides a two way spring action, the motion to the right being stronger than the motion to the left. So having them in upside down provides the stronger action in the wrong direction.
Why did this make me sad? Another thing about the cars was that their numbers had obviously been modified for an operations oriented layout. That and the shear number of flat cars tells me this was a very large layout. I envisioned a grand operations with maybe 10-20 people and 7-8 simultanious trains running using these cars in their trains. I envisioned stopping the train over an uncoupling ramp and having nothing happen. And even when the cars uncoupled I can imagine the delayed action didn't work right. I envisioned stopping a train and suddenly it comes in two. With the issues of the cars I also imagine in operations mode there were constant uncoupling and coupling issues and constant derailments. It is miserable to operate on a poorly performing layout. I wonder how many operators would leave after the session shaking their heads. I felt for this poor owner's dream of a wonderful layout, but once built probably never operated well.
I have no idea if any of this is true, and how much my brain made up. But I have experienced the results of such problems with couplers many times. So my experience says it could have been, an that makes me very sad. I wonder how many model railroader's dreams end with toy train like performance problems.
All of them needed work. I took apart each car, cleaned it, fixed broken parts like the stirrup, painted them, reamed the trucks, replaced the wheel sets, repaired the coupler pockets, and coupler springs etc. As I worked through each car I got more and more sad. Some trends became apparent. Many of the original Athearn BB coupler pockets had been replace with Kadee boxes screwed to the cars metal weight. As most HO scale users know the weight does not fit snug it has a bit of slop from side to side. That and having the Kadee coupler boxes not exactly centered made the hooks have a funny angle to them, and the trucks would sometimes bump. Then there were no washers on the bolsters to bring the couplers up to the right height. True that means they all align, but it also means the little uncoupling wire hanging down is too low. I could see how the prior owner had bent them up, but then they had a funny cup to them. Finally, the Kadee #5 brass springs were on the underside of the coupler rather than the top. For non-HO scale people, the coupler spring provides a two way spring action, the motion to the right being stronger than the motion to the left. So having them in upside down provides the stronger action in the wrong direction.
Why did this make me sad? Another thing about the cars was that their numbers had obviously been modified for an operations oriented layout. That and the shear number of flat cars tells me this was a very large layout. I envisioned a grand operations with maybe 10-20 people and 7-8 simultanious trains running using these cars in their trains. I envisioned stopping the train over an uncoupling ramp and having nothing happen. And even when the cars uncoupled I can imagine the delayed action didn't work right. I envisioned stopping a train and suddenly it comes in two. With the issues of the cars I also imagine in operations mode there were constant uncoupling and coupling issues and constant derailments. It is miserable to operate on a poorly performing layout. I wonder how many operators would leave after the session shaking their heads. I felt for this poor owner's dream of a wonderful layout, but once built probably never operated well.
I have no idea if any of this is true, and how much my brain made up. But I have experienced the results of such problems with couplers many times. So my experience says it could have been, an that makes me very sad. I wonder how many model railroader's dreams end with toy train like performance problems.
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