I have had a couple of Prairie Shadow CN Cabooses for a while and they are a great looking model, but frankly, they don't roll worth a hoot. Put them behind a train and you are dragging it around the layout. I think I posted here a while back looking for solutions and I made some enquiries among local N Scalers. That lead me to find out that Rapido offers replacement wheelsets for this caboose which I didn't know. They came with 36 inch wheel and they should have 33 inch wheels. I contacted Rapido and they were quick to provide me with replacement wheelsets. Installed them in the cabooses, and Nada. That wasn't the problem since they still didn't run very well.
As you know from other posts, the guys from Rapido were at my layout last week to shoot a video for the Turbo. I took that opportunity to ask Rapido's resident tech genius Dan, how do I make these trucks roll. He quickly explained that to make the lighting work, they had to make the trucks plastic sideframes very thin and then layer them with the brass pickups for the lighting. This thinness results in a warping of the truck sideframe which causes a binding of the wheelset. By holding the side frame between your fingers and gently bending it you can return it to the proper place. This is a trial and error process. Dan did the first one, and voila, the caboose now rolled on the track. Following his directions, I did the second one, and now I have two CN Cabooses which actually roll on the track.
I had posted this on my layout post but thought it might be of value posting it here as well.
