Escapee from Mircotrains R&D department

[Altoona]

 I recently purchased a used Kadee Mirco-trains car, Northern Pacific 50' Standard Single Door stock #31170 date released Sept 1974.
I was getting to body mount coupler, pull of the trucks and found out they were clip on trucks and the king pin hole in the frame was offset to the end of the car.
Been in  n-scale for 50 years and never seen this on a Mirco-trains car.
see attached photos

[Skeebo]

     I've seen those, back in the dawn of N scale. A sure giveaway as to their era are the old ribbed interior pizza cutter wheelsets.........

[rodsup9000]

 I bought over a hundred pairs of these from a guy that he bought from a estate sale in Medford Or. 
I use the coupler parts in my 3D printed boxes for body mounting.

[peteski]

Yes, these were offered  in the early Kadee/Micro-Trains days, as were trucks with rapido couplers.
Those were offered for modelers to upgrade their existing trucks on their non Micro-Trains car to the low-friction trucks made from Delrin and with ribbed-back wheels.

[nkalanaga]

They also used the clip-on trucks on a few of their cars.  I have one, that I can remember, but off-hand don't remember which one.

I wonder if they were originally designed to fit the Kato/Sekisui cars ConCor and MRC imported, with their split-shank mounting pins?  I never tried to use one that way, but it's a thought.

[pmpexpress]

Micro-Trains: Early Kadee Production Trivia

Excerpts from the aforementioned Blog Article:

"Likely designed to simplify final product assembly, factory fitted with either Magne-Matic® knuckle or Rapido style couplers and a pair of mounting ears (as opposed to the customary king pin holes), the extremely fragile, Clip-On-Truck made a very short appearance in the marketplace from September 1974 to October 1975."

"Packaged with Kadee® Micro-Trains® paper inserts bearing black, blue, and green printing and a factory printed MSRP, the following September 1974 to October 1975 freight car releases were factory fitted with Clip-On-Trucks  12/74 Release 31000 50' Dimensional Data Boxcar, the 9/74 and 1/75 Release 31118 50' Missouri Pacific MP 352278 and MP 32253 Boxcars, the 10/74 and 1/75 Release 31139 50' Pittsburgh and Lake Erie P&LE 23029 and P&LE 23025 Boxcars, the 9/74 Release 31170 Northern Pacific NP 31468 Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 31463 50' Delaware and Hudson 22169 Boxcars, the 10/74 and 1/75 31487 Release 50' Chesapeake and Ohio C&O 21422 and C&O 21427 Boxcars, the 11/74 Release 32000 50' Dimensional Data Boxcar, the 11/74 and 4/75 32076 50' Santa Fe SFRB 6169 and SFRB 6119 Boxcars, the 11/74 Release 32144 50' Frisco SL-SF 12074 Boxcar, the 12/74 and 6/75 Release 32166 50' Seaboard Coast Line SCL 492964 and SCL 492966 Boxcars, the 11/74 Release 32499 50' Nickel Plate Road NKP 85496 Boxcar, the 12/74 Release 32507 50' Burlington Northern Refrigerator Express BREX 79577 Boxcar, the 1/75 Release 33000 50' Dimensional Data Boxcar, the 1/75 Release 33089 50' Union Pacific UP 170509 Boxcar, the 2/75 Release 33121 50' Cotton Belt SSW 48075 Boxcar, the 2/75 and 10/75 Release 33451 50' Western Maryland WM 35001 and WM 35007 Boxcars, the 6/74 Release 34000 50' Dimensional Data Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34000 50' Undecorated Light Brown Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34033 50' Norfolk and Western NW 285228 Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34091 50' Southern Pacific SP 202519 Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34105 50' Denver and Rio Grande Western D&RGW 63555 Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34151 50' Baltimore and Ohio B&O 471310 Boxcar, the 10/74 Release 34472 50' Pennsylvania PRR 32156 Boxcar, the 1/75 Release 42000 40' Dimensional Data Wood Boxcar, the 2/75 and 6/75 Release 42080 40' Union Pacific UP 100100 and UP 100104 Wood Boxcars, and the 3/75 Release 42551 40' Hills Brothers Coffee HBCX 161 Wood Boxcar."

[brokemoto]

Kadee/MT must have dropped these early.  I have a few fifty foot gondola kits that have the Kadee brand on the package as well as a few cars branded Kadee.  All of them have the usual truck pins.  None have this clippy pin.

Still, interesting.  I never knew that Kadee/MT used those although many manufacturers of that era did.