Removing glued-in Con-Cor Budd passenger car trucks (how?)

[nickelplate759]

I didn't realize they included both.  It's been a while since I had one of those apart.  I would replace that steel weight with some lead flashing.  So maybe the cylinders all  along were intended as electrical conductors for interior lighting?

Seems unlikely, since Con-Cor never appropriate offered trucks with electrical pickup, but with Con-Cor it's hard to know what they were thinking.

[thomasjmdavis]

Seems unlikely, since Con-Cor never appropriate offered trucks with electrical pickup, but with Con-Cor it's hard to know what they were thinking.

I have one car that came "factory equipped with Micro-trains couplers"...which Con Cor did the easy way- by equipping the car with MTL 1017 trucks. 

On the lighting, I wonder if they at some point had planned to use the same trucks used under the Rivarossi/Atlas/Con-Cor fluted streamline cars (which were available both with and without lights) or the Rowa/MRC/Con-Cor C&O cars (which were lighted, at least mine were) and perhaps discovered they did not have the tooling anymore. 

[peteski]

To make any of the original trucks electrically active all that was needed was to slip a pickup wiper strip between the axles and install the lighting unit in the car.  The original wheelsets only had a single wheel insulated.  Each truck picked up power from one rail.  I think when one bought the lighting unit, the wiper strips were included.

[thomasjmdavis]

To make any of the original trucks electrically active all that was needed was to slip a pickup wiper strip between the axles and install the lighting unit in the car.  The original wheelsets only had a single wheel insulated.  Each truck picked up power from one rail.  I think when one bought the lighting unit, the wiper strips were included.

Of course you are correct on that.  Shows how long it's been since I pulled the lights out of a 1970 era N scale car.  I probably still have several of those wiper strips buried in junk boxes.