100 Ton truck options for Atlas 100 ton open hopper

[Mark5]

The wheel flanges for the BLMA 100-ton trucks touch the hopper bays, so I'm curious to get my hands on the MTL 100-ton trucks.

With one MTL washer they are fine. Will check the resulting height sometime this weekend as I bought the remaining stock of BLMA 100 ton trucks this week.

Will have word on acquiring the MTL (Barber) 100 ton trucks next week when I call in my order.

Next up after that will be 100 ton trucks on the MTL 100 ton hopper.

Mark

[ai5629]

Will have word on acquiring the MTL (Barber) 100 ton trucks next week when I call in my order.

Next up after that will be 100 ton trucks on the MTL 100 ton hopper.

Mark

If the bolster hole on the MTL 100 ton truck is not offset, then you will be running into the same problem with the MTL hoppers.  The MTL hoppers require an off center truck for the truck to line up with the last side stake.  BLMA trucks will be positioned slightly inward toward the slope sheets and not in line with the last side stake since the bolster hole on the BLMA truck is centered.  BLMA trucks will also require the MTL washer to prevent the wheels from hitting the slope sheets.  What the MTL hoppers need is Trainworx 100 ton trucks, like those used on the PD3000 cars.  The TW 100 ton truck has an off center bolster.  Although I have not tried it yet, I believe it would line up correctly with the last side stake of the MTL hopper.  I managed to drop two TW Conrail PD3000 cars (since replaced), and they are now parts donors.  I will have to try using the TW 100 ton truck with the MTL hopper to see how it lines up.  Thanks.

Jeff

[Mark5]

Jeff,

Interesting info on the MTL cars. Will start a separate MTL 100 ton hopper thread in the coming days.

As aside, for those interested in modelling the N&W - N&W used both ASF and Barber 100 ton trucks on these hoppers (I have a complete breakdown if anyone is interested - PM me). So I need to use some of each.

Mark

[cjm413]

The Lifelike car is different tooling. I can post pix if curious as I still have an example somewhere.

The frame on the Life-Like car extends past the bolsters and provides a surface to mount a coupler after the ends of the frame are secured to the ends of the car (to prevent the couplers from sagging) and the car is lowered (BLMA trucks)

[Mark5]

Placed a phone order with MTL today for 10 pairs of the 100 Ton Roller Bearing Trucks, hopefully will have by next weekend.

Also hope that they'll eventually add these to the website.

Mark

[Mark5]

Update:

Although my absolute minumum radius is 15" or so, I tested the MTL 100 ton truck equiped Atlas car on some Kato 11" radius track that I have and there was some rubbing at that radius, so see nkalanaga's posts about clearance if you are running tight curves. (The test car was fine on 15" radius curves).

I also re-fitted the car with BLMA 100 ton ASF trucks and got results that contradicted my first post in this thread - I got some wheel rubbing.  Will figure out where the prob is this week.

Mark

[Mark5]

I received 10 pairs of 100 ton roller bearing trucks from Micro-Trains last week so this week I picked up some Fox Valley wheelsets to use with them.

When I looked closely at them I was surprised to see that the bolster holes were offset - unlike the 100 ton trucks that I removed from my MTL 122 00 050 N&W 60' Double Plug Box Car.

In this photo (snapped very hastily!), the truck on the left is one that I removed from the box car and the one on the right is one of the ones I just received from Microtrains:



The one on the left clearly has a centered bolster hole, while the "newer" one on the right has an offset bolster hole. Perhaps the early releases were no "finalized" and they decided to make offset on the
"production" version. You can see that "Micro Trains" was added to the newer truck. I'll ask around. 

I will experiment a little further with this later this week.

[ai5629]

Interesting observation about the 100 ton truck bolster.  It will be interesting to see what the offset bolster looks like on the Atlas cars and the MTL cars.  Does the offset bolster 100 ton truck have the slight hump to the bolster that the MTL trucks usually come with?  Thanks.

Jeff

[Catt]

Mark, got a price for those 100 ton trucks? They do look useful. 

[Mark5]

Does the offset bolster 100 ton truck have the slight hump to the bolster that the MTL trucks usually come with?  Thanks.

Jeff

Jeff, the bolster is the same height as on the "early" MTL 100 ton truck. The car on the left has the "early" MTL 100 ton trucks while the car on the right has the "production" MTL 100 ton truck:



This is good news to me. This means with the slight bolster hole offset the truck is brought a little closer to the end of the car. Not perfect but with the body mount couplers and correct 100 ton trucks this inexpensive model with late 1970s tooling is vastly improved.

I thought the pricing was the same as the other bulk truck packs w/o couplers, but will check the invoice when I get a chance over the holidays.

(bulk pricing is $36.25 for other bulk packs - sample: http://micro-trainsline.com/nscale/ntrucks/nscalebulkpacks/310040).

Mark

[Catt]

That seems like a fair price to me. Thank's for the info. 

[Mark5]

I have reached conclusions on the trucks. I have decided to use the MTL 100 Ton Barber trucks on my Atlas "90 ton" (100 ton) hoppers. Even though the BLMA 100 Ton ASF is correct on most of the N&W 100 ton hoppers, the MTL trucks are just too easy to use. The reason is that they fit the car with out modification and bring the overall height close to proto (12'6" vs proto of 12'3") - close enough for me. I am also using the FVM 36" wheels in the MTL trucks. The added benefit of the offset holes on the MTL trucks is that the truck is slightly closer to the end of the car. I added the brake detail from MTL as previously mentioned and will add better brake wheels and call it a day (I have dozens of these hoppers). What is missing from this car that the MTL 100 ton hopper does have is the end bracing. For now I can live without that, though I may add these at some point in the future.

So this car introduced in the late 1970s by Atlas:



Can now look like this (much improved 21st century Atlas lettering!):



Some more shots of the two modified cars (with MTL 100 ton trucks, FVM 36" wheels, Trainworx body mounts, and MTL brake detail):







That wraps this discussion up for me. I've been experimenting a little with the Micro-Trains 100 ton hopper - I will start a thread on that model soon.

Mark

[Chris1274]

So, when you refer to MTL 100 ton trucks, do you mean the 1035's?

[Mark5]

So, when you refer to MTL 100 ton trucks, do you mean the 1035's?

No, the 1035 are 70 ton Barber roller bearing trucks.

The trucks I am using are the 1139 100 Ton Barber roller bearing trucks, which are only available direct from MTL at this point (see prior posts in this thread).

Mark

[Chris1274]

Yes, reading previous posts in a thread is usually a good idea  Thanks for the info.