Doing the impossible


Aerojet

Aerojet

Active Member
Well been at it again! The daughter found this item at a rummage sale, and for $2.00??? Why Not? Dad could make it work ... sez here ..

Basically it is a Bachmann HO gauge 89 foot tri-level car transporter. I had seen these for N gauge, but never HO. It is obviously the middle car in that ATSF set.

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A lot of work went into getting this hook and horn unit running with full Kadee's and running around 18 inch curves. This photo celebrates the final triumph of getting the thing to run without derailing or hitting tunnel walls, or other scenery. It had made 12 trips around as of this photo, so I am sure it will work perfectly in the future.

Normal sized HO auto transports are the two on the ends. I have six, of three different types on my pike -- The pair you see here, two black auto loaders from the 60's and two orange Tyco cars as well. This is the normal running length for this type of car. With this photo I have taken it one step beyond.

Anybody know how old this car is? It came from a garbage sale - so - your guess is as good as mine. It had crummy hook and horn, really long couplers on it and needed tons of work ...

The bottom?
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Here you see the work which went into getting this done. First the hook and horns were removed, then a plastic arm was attached to the existing Talgo truck. Next Kadee 148's were put on the end of the thing. To stiffen up the ride, special thin blocks were made to keep the car from yawing from side to side. The original mounting is under them. It had a tendency to flip from side to side hitting all kinds of things like tunnel portals and walls. Now it rides solidly on the trucks.

Adjust to suit.

Probably not run it all the time, but for fun it will go out and deep in the auto rack special.

Enjoy

the Aerojet
 
I think they sold those in the late 1970s through early 1990s. I'm not sure how many runs they did, or if they only ever did the one run, and slow sales meant they were available that long.
 
I probably should mention here this one fact you need to know if you are going to do this.

This car like all really long cars like 70 foot center beams and now this 89 foot car, need to run between two Talgo cars. Do not run these between cars with center mounted couplers, the long swing will pull the cars off the tracks. The Talgo mounts will swing far enough to make this work.

Just a note in passing.

The Aerojet
 
To each his own, but I will stick with the 40's and 50's cars of 36 to 42 feet!
Nice work on getting it to run on the small radius curves.
 
Look gang - the only reason I am posting things like this is because people keep on asking how can they run long cars on 18 inch curves which most of us in HO have. I have found a way - you can do it too!

This car is not that "new" - according to Wikipedia auto rack article, this type of car was used in the late 50's and early 60's before they went in to the totally covered type of auto racks. There is also a "Vertiload" unit which was used for some Chevies in the 60's which packed 30 cars in one load, nose down. So if you are modeling the 50's and 60's, this car would fit right in. They are available on Evil bay for about 15 to 25 bux and can be a very good addition to your auto rack / trailer on flat car / container unit trains.

I haven't tried this with other makes of auto racks, but I am sure it would work with some tinkering.

Using this for passenger cars also works. I have adapted this type of coupling to several of the things in the 85 foot range and it works well. Yes the spacing looks a bit funny, but the premise is to run cars in trains and not sit on shelves. If you can put up with a few cars wider then it should be you can do it too.

What counts most is having fun and displaying and running a wide variety of cars on the pike.

YMMV

The Aerojet
 
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