The Lionel 1990s set was based on the semi scale pre war cars instead of the scale cars, I assume because they wanted to make it compatible with existing rolling stock coupler wise. The big mistake was to use the semi scale truck spacing instead of the scale car truck spacing. MTH made a similar set in the late nineties but even though they used the pictures of Lionel's 1990 set in their catalog, only two cars are close copies, the boxcar and hopper. The tank car came with a walkway around the dome like the chemical cars and the caboose came with roller bearing trucks. I switched out the trucks on the caboose and relocated them on the MTH die cast caboose. Lionel's "archbars" (Their term) are closest to the T section bettendorf you will find in three rail. AFAIK only Pecos River has done correct T section bettendorfs and they are two rail.
This is the MTH caboose but similar mods can be done on all the modern remakes.
Before:
After:
Pete
