DakotaLove39
Always Improvising
Thanks to the power of Facebook marketplace I'm the happy owner of one of a classic Lionel HO American Freedom Train set. I acquired it without a box, with #4449 as the motive power but only with four cars (Official set with 4449 had five). I'm not too bothered by this at the moment, but I have ideas to make a few of my own additions, such as the Tool Car that joined the AFT with #4449.
So here is where I am stuck, I guess. I need to bring the cars up to spec so that I can run them on the club layout! They need metal wheels and Kadee couplers for sure. The cars are extremely lightweight and of course have truck-mounted horn-hook couplers. Weight I can do. I have wheel weights and a scale. Trucks and couplers? Those are tripping me up. I was thinking I would replace the original trucks with appropriate Walthers GSC metal trucks and wheels and install Kadee extended swing couplers on them. Conversions like this are a little different thing for me, so I wanted to ask about it here first. What would you guys do to bring these up to standard?
So here is where I am stuck, I guess. I need to bring the cars up to spec so that I can run them on the club layout! They need metal wheels and Kadee couplers for sure. The cars are extremely lightweight and of course have truck-mounted horn-hook couplers. Weight I can do. I have wheel weights and a scale. Trucks and couplers? Those are tripping me up. I was thinking I would replace the original trucks with appropriate Walthers GSC metal trucks and wheels and install Kadee extended swing couplers on them. Conversions like this are a little different thing for me, so I wanted to ask about it here first. What would you guys do to bring these up to standard?