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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Ironically, I just did a mod like this on a Life Like All Door Boxcar. I went the cheap way and just cut the couplers off the trucks. Then, did body mount couplers. The trucks took metal wheel sets just fine. Little weathering on the car and off to the fleet.
I have several cars in storage at my old house and in my room. I will be upgrading them later most of it is old Arnold and post World War II equipment. So most of these are antiques. All I have to do is take the old trucks off of them, replace the metal wheels with modern wheels, and throw out those hook and horn couplers that they have. I will see we are where I can find a locomotive to pull them that is not from the Eastern Block those locomotives have metal gears and they are noisy and if you try to run them on modern track you can fry the motor on them. I have a lot of work to replace couplers.
I do have various types, flatcars, boxcars, tank carsof various brands that have the old style cars, thanks for the help and I use the 158 whisker couplers on all of my equipment.