Q: Was there ever an article on converting old railcars to accept modern trucks and couplers? I have a few HO Tyco cars that need to be converted. — Jason Trew
A: Jim Kelly and Andy Sperandeo co-authored “Kadee couplers” in the May 1981 issue of Model Railroader. The article covered both N and HO couplers (the N scale couplers are now offered under the Micro-Trains Magne-Matic banner). The information you’ll be most interested in for your HO scale Tyco cars is on page 81. In the middle column, they discuss how to replace truck-mounted couplers with body-mounted couplers. Figure 11 in the bottom right corner shows a practical example of the process.
You didn’t mention which specific Tyco HO cars you have, but if I were to guess they have snap-fit trucks. I would recommend replacing them with screw-mounted trucks. Various articles have addressed how to prepare bolster holes for screw-mounting trucks. Examples include filling the holes with sprue material, styrene rod or tube, or modeling putty. Then you’ll need to drill and tap the material to accept a screw. You may also need to file the bolster to bring the car and/or couplers to the correct height.
Another variation you can use to upgrade old freight cars can be found in Tom Busack’s article “Shortline lumber haulers” in the August 1985 MR. First, he filled the bolster holes on the Life-Like HO scale cars with epoxy. Tom then drilled the holes with a No. 50 bit and tapped them with a 2-56 bit.
Next, he filed the bolsters to adjust the car and coupler height. Tom then cut a section from a Kadee No. 5 coupler box top and cemented it to the bolster as a shoulder for the replacement trucks.
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