What I'm after is any sort of modern roller bearing truck with electrical pick-ups that roll mostly freely.
I have been trying to get my Athearn 57' Mechanical reefers more free rolling and I can not come up with anything.
I went as far as ordering a set of trucks from Kato from their bethgons, thinking they had a similar pick up as the short caboose. I was wrong. What looks like pick up tabs are just black plastic studs molded into the trucks.
The current set up on these cars is flange wipers, and they cause so much drag that a few SD40s that I've tested (Kato, BLI, Intermountain) none can pull more than two in a ~10 car consist.
Ive now tried two other ways, different set of trucks with back of the wheel wipers and axle wipers. back of the wheel was about the same amount of drag, but maybe worse.
Axle wipers faired better, but the sound would cut out rolling a few inches down the track...
I get the feeling I'm SoL on the typical cone style pickups we see in other trucks like Kato passenger cars.
I briefly looked into the Kato Autorack trucks, but they are snap on types like newer passenger cars so those are out.
I have poked around the internet, and I just run into HO trucks... at the rate I'm going I may as well swap scales.
either that or drop out of the hobby and buy go fast parts for the car....