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I am a little upset at reading this thread. I do not own any of these defective cars but my investment in Weaver goes a little deeper into the pocketbook too. I have a Weaver engine, purchased new just recently. It does not run properly at all and needs servicing. I took solace in the fact that I read on OGR that Weaver's service was top notch?

 

Seems not to be. Far from it! Why oh why, if others are coming up with solutions at 10 to 40 dollars per car, can not Weaver do anything at all?

 

This is how companies die.

All,

 

  Glad to hear Des Plaines Hobbies may be producing replacement frames/floors.  I shopped there in the early 2000/2003, and attended the O Scale shows, always enjoyed and made some great purchases.  I have found and checked my Weaver cars.

The photos I posted are the MOW cars #454015, 454017 with the warped/broken frames.  Also have, and found no problems, yet, Army Guard #68 (U21057LD) and #62

(U21057LD), Troop Hospital #8733 (U21100LD), Troop Kitchen #162, #168 (U21058LD).  I am keeping an eye on these, hoping for the best, naturally.  Hope the information is helpful to others, perhaps it will be passed to Weaver and demonstrate the true extent of the problem to them.  I also have several other Weaver products of rolling stock, motive power, from various periods.  Only problem I can recall with all others is when the pickup roller mounts on my FEF #8444 would have hard impact on switch frogs and damage them.  I rectified this with a Dremel tool and disc, rounding off the leading edges of the roller mounts.  Otherwise, really like the detail and scale dimensions of their products.

 

Jesse

Oklahoma

Carguy,

 

  Our condolences for the passing of your father.  I know for myself, and I am certain others, it was with my father the hobby of model railroading has it most importance.  My father passed in 1978 at a young age, but he and I enjoyed our trains with my first son.  It is through these memories we all continue the pleasure of trains with our children and grand children, all generations that follow.  It is a commitment, a responsibility, a shared joy and love.

 

Jesse

Oklahoma

I don't have any of these cars myself, but I really do think the invective being thrown at Weaver interesting.  EVERY die cast train manufacturer has dealt with Zinc Pest at one point or another.  It was part of what killed Dorfan; many Lionel prewar pieces suffer INCLUDING the vaunted 700E.  Surely, it IS a bad situation, buit it's not unprecedented.  If you think you're unhappy about your $100 car, think how those folks in the '40s must have felt about their $75 Hudsons and Blue Comets 

Last edited by palallin

I checked my cars.  I think I only have three but need to look some more.  

 

The Kitchen Car has a warped frame.  It's not so warped that it can't run.  The warping doesn't drop below the car body.  However, I'm sure it should be removed to prevent damage.  The two other frames seem OK, but after reading more of this thread, it seems that a closer look is needed.

 

It turns out that I have a 2-rail Sleeper.  I guess the 3 rail cars were gone when I bought them.  Good for me because I am 2 rail now.  

 

I had always planned to add to the cars I have.  It's too bad that they are no longer made.

______________________________________________________________________

 

Richard - That was a great job you did!  Thanks for posting.  I have to make sure I save your post for further reference.

I picked up a Weaver troop Kitchen car at the Chicago O sale show. I checked it out and could not find any evidence of warping at this time. I had to pay top dollar for the car. I guess the fact that Weaver canceled the production of the troop kitchen car last year, and folks who have a car with a good frame can get top dollar, is pushing the prices up.

 

I am really interested in the Des Plains frame. I have replaced a frame in one of my Weaver express cars. It came out Ok, but I am sure the Des Plains frame will be much better then the one I made.  I wish I could have spoken to Des Plains about  this in Chicago.

 

Richard

Well, I guess we are just SOL -Sorry, Out of Luck.

 

I have at least two cars that I need to rebuild the frames on now.

 

I saw one of the high end 3D printers up at Tennessee Tech College last month. They are using the 3D printer to reproduce photo images into plastic 3D Images.

 

Maybe Lionel will see the need for replacement frames  and the opportunity to make money (they are in business to make money, correct??)

 

We can only hope.

 

Richard

Last edited by Richard Gonzales

Yes, still waiting to hear back any word from Des Plains Hobby.  So, it is a certain that Des Plains DID mention they will consider producing replacement frames?  It has been some years ago, but when I bought at Des Plains, they were very responsive and great to deal with.  I mentioned this on another post topic about perhaps Lionel or MTH pick up the ball and run with it.  Perhaps, to even do a production run(s) of the different type military rolling stock..... 3rd Rail?  Menards?  Atlas?  Anyone out there picking up on this?

Originally Posted by J Daddy:

Thanks for the heads up guys. I was looking to purchase a few of these and now I know I will stay clear.

I hope Weaver will run a new set of cars in the future with the diecast issue resolved.

The bugger is about these cars is you may have a good one today and an uh-oh tomorrow.

Weaver is now out of business and won't be making these cars.  Luckily Atlas ( according to a p[ost by Charlie Nassau ) bought the tooling for these cars and hopefully they ( Atlas ) will correct the problem.  I do own two Weaver troop sleepers and have not had this problem .... hopefully never will either

Sorry to bump this old thread but I just got back into running trains again after spending the last several years focusing on young children and found one of these ex-troop cars painted for N&W that had the warped floor.  Thanks to the power of the Internet this thread got me taking the floor off last night to keep the shell from cracking.

I was able to save all the under car detail without breaking it.

Has anyone made a new floor for their cars?  I was thinking that a piece of Aluminum cut to the size of the shell opening might work.

 

 

OK.  An associate and I had prepared a mold for making a cast resin replacement part for the warped floor.  Based on her reconstruction of one of her own troop cars using our cast resin parts, it would've been a dandy solution.  But the floor would not have been made of metal, of course, which ends up really only being a car weight issue, not a structural one based on the overall Weaver design.  Additional distributed weight could easily be located within the car to compensate.

But since then, after talks with the new owners of the troop car tooling...Atlas..., we've determined that it is their intent to offer replacement floors in some manner (they have no financial obligation of their own, mind you, to correct a Weaver-vintage product).  Since they have announced a new run of the cars under their own name, I would be patient and optimistic that a solution is forthcoming.  If nothing else, the April York meet will probably provide some answers.  OTOH, did anyone collar Atlas folks about this at the Big E show just this past weekend??

So, should Atlas NOT come through, we have the mold and a rather simple solution.  Let's see what they will do, though.

KD

Last edited by dkdkrd

I'd like to pull the trigger on four or five of the new Atlas cars. However, I've had an alarming number of crumbling trucks from their freight cars, so I'm concerned about these new releases. In addition, their response to me on the trucks has been less than acceptable and I don't want to see the same if these cars go south. Anybody else feel the same?

NYC Z-MAN posted:

 I've had an alarming number of crumbling trucks from their freight cars, so I'm concerned about these new releases.

Now THAT's something new to me....never experienced it among all of my own Atlas cars!  But it's also a serious concern, because....

In addition to having the floor-warpage issue resolved, the availability of separate-sale Allied Full Cushion trucks, as Weaver so accurately/beautifully provided on these cars, is of strong personal interest re some pet projects requiring the same.  So, in the same discussion with our Atlas friends, they were quite optimistic that Atlas would, indeed, offer these special die cast trucks/couplers for separate sale....eventually.  A lingering metallurgical problem with the trucks would be a real bummer!!

More discussion fodder for York!

TexasEd posted:

Thanks, That may be the easiest option but will make the car much lighter. 

I may run a square tube down the middle to allow the trucks to screw through something thicker and add rigidity to the floor.

Was the spine of your car warped as well? In my case the spine was still fairly strait so I was able to just remove it from the warped car floor and reattach it to the new styrene car floor. Retaining the spine, if possible helped maintain a fairly good car weight, so I didn't add any addition ballast.

Lyle A posted:
TexasEd posted:

Thanks, That may be the easiest option but will make the car much lighter. 

I may run a square tube down the middle to allow the trucks to screw through something thicker and add rigidity to the floor.

Was the spine of your car warped as well? In my case the spine was still fairly strait so I was able to just remove it from the warped car floor and reattach it to the new styrene car floor. Retaining the spine, if possible helped maintain a fairly good car weight, so I didn't add any addition ballast.

My spine was fine.  I detached everything from the bottom of the car without problems.  Now that you mention it the spine is where the trucks attach, not to the floor.  The spine does attach to the floor though so I'll still be stiffening up the floor somehow.

TEXASED,

Did you see the Pennsy express car I repaired on page 4 of this thread?  I used evergreen plastic to replace the frame on my Pennsy express car. This repair worded fine for me.

Hopefully Atlas will make the replacement frame available soon. I have exchanged emails with Bill at Atlas. They are well into the planning for production of the troop sleeper cars and replacement frames will  be available. He indicated that the center sill which includes the truck bolsters and much of the under frame detail will not be included with the replacement frames. This did not make much sense to me.  His explanation was not clear, so keep you center sills on hand. We may have to splice our broken center sills back together  and re use them.

Thanks,

Richard 

jd-train posted:

I took a much closer look at my four cars (3 sleepers and 1 kitchen) this afternoon.

There is no damage to any of the shells and all cars sit flat on the track.

Just to make sure that there was not any warping to the frames, I dissembled the shells from all the frames:

  • sleeper 7020 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
  • sleeper 7679 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
  • sleeper 7276 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
  • kitchen car 162 - no damage and frame appeared to be straight.  However, when I went to screw the shell back on to the frame, I noticed it rocked 3/16" from one end to the other!  I guess that unscrewing the shell from the frame allowed the frame to release its energy and bend.


DSC03949 [1280x960)

My suggestion would be that if anyone has troop cars that look to be in perfect shape, to go ahead and take off the shells anyway, just to be sure.  Better to know now if the frames are warped before they damage the shells.

 

Maybe if we post the number of our cars and if there is any warping to the frames, we could find any commonality in the problem.

 

These are beautifully done cars and I forgot how detailed they were until I took another look at them this afternoon.  I am sorry to see and hear the severe issues that some of y'all have had.  I am grateful for this thread as it has saved the shell on my kitchen car.

 

Jim

Update on my 4 troop cars, as more than two years have passed, and I took a look at them again as I packed up my trains and took down the layout recently.  Glad to report that there are no changes to my cars!  The three sleepers still look straight and the kitchen car hasn't gotten any worse.

Even so, I took out all of the screws from all the shells and frames as I packed up the cars.

Hope other folks have found no additional damage to their cars as well.

Jim

Last edited by jd-train

That is exactly what I did, but I used a MOW car and after I finished I noticed It was only the floor that was warped not the separate center beam. I mate a new floor from Evergreen Styrene, attached the center beam and added the detail parts and now I have a functional MOW car and a repaired Troop Sleeper.

Atlas O is making the former Weaver Troop sleeper. Maybe they will offer a replacement floor.

 

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