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I have 24 of the AM heavyweight style passenger cars. Approximately 1 in 4 of them had slightly low couplers which caused uncoupling, and worse, derailments when backing through turnouts. Out of the box the bottom of the coupler lever was below the top of the point rails and would catch on them. All the bad ones were on the 4 wheel trucks, not the 6 wheel trucks. I then changed all the 4 wheel trucks to 6 wheel trucks and carefully reassembled them. No more derailments or spurious uncoupling. A lot of work but they also look better.

There is another key difference between the Flyonel and AM wheel sets. 100% of the Flyonel freight and passenger wheel sets are manufactured with the gauge too narrow by about 0.1". This makes them very forgiving of less than perfect trackwork. All the AM (and SHS/MTH) equipment has precisely accurate wheel gauging. I had to regauge all of my Flyonel cars so they would operate on my scale style turnouts and crossings. The AM cars worked flawlessly. Interestingly the gauge of the engine wheelsets from Lionel is spot on so they know the correct gauge. To me this indicates Lionel makes the car wheels narrow intentionally to improve reliability on layouts that use the Gilbert style track.

AmFlyer posted:

I have 24 of the AM heavyweight style passenger cars. Approximately 1 in 4 of them had slightly low couplers which caused uncoupling, and worse, derailments when backing through turnouts. Out of the box the bottom of the coupler lever was below the top of the point rails and would catch on them. All the bad ones were on the 4 wheel trucks, not the 6 wheel trucks. I then changed all the 4 wheel trucks to 6 wheel trucks and carefully reassembled them. No more derailments or spurious uncoupling. A lot of work but they also look better.

There is another key difference between the Flyonel and AM wheel sets. 100% of the Flyonel freight and passenger wheel sets are manufactured with the gauge too narrow by about 0.1". This makes them very forgiving of less than perfect trackwork. All the AM (and SHS/MTH) equipment has precisely accurate wheel gauging. I had to regauge all of my Flyonel cars so they would operate on my scale style turnouts and crossings. The AM cars worked flawlessly. Interestingly the gauge of the engine wheelsets from Lionel is spot on so they know the correct gauge. To me this indicates Lionel makes the car wheels narrow intentionally to improve reliability on layouts that use the Gilbert style track.

I chose a less sophisticated approach to some AM coupler levers which hang too low for my Fastrack turnouts. I whipped out the Dremel and ground a millimeter or two off of the bottom of the button.

I have 2 MTH Reading T-1's, 4-8-4 steam engines, with PS-2 sounds in 3 rail. These engines run very well with the PS-2 control system from MTH.

Also have around 11 or 12 Williams Reading Company passenger cars from around 20 years ago in three rail. The first Williams Reading Company passenger cars needed to have their wheelsets replaced, as they had only the plastic coupler(no uncoupler). The second set of Williams Reading Company passenger cars have uncouplers that work well.

I have a couple of S gauge cabooses from American Flyer from the early 50's, they have the old couplers that close on each other(not the knuckle couplers).

Lee

Last edited by phillyreading

Cast urethane will hold paint just fine if you wash it with dish detergent (no lanolin) or simple green or a citrus cleaner, and warm water, scrub with an old toothbrush.  This is to get the mold release off.  I wash my roof vents in an ultra-sonic cleaner before I ship them because they are so small and would be a real pain to scrub.  The roofs will not fit in the cleaner.  This cleaning also gets glue to hold.  Many people use ca, I prefer epoxy because it gives me time to get things where I want them.  I work slow, so I want a slow glue.  An hour or so after the epoxy has set, I trim off the excess with an exacto knife before it gets rock hard.

Steve Wolcott

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the heads up, but I have become very disappointed with AM passenger cars. At every show, they either derail or uncouple - which causes them to be removed from the layout.  I love the look of them and am thinking of ways to solve the problems.  More weight might make them track better, and I am either going to try to bend up the couplers, or replace with scale.

If I get them to work reliably, I will update with Hennings LED kits, but all the modifications would cost as much or more then the cars - which cost more then the Flyer Cars to start with. 

Francine

 

 

Francine posted:

Hi Tom,

 but I have become very disappointed with AM passenger cars. At every show, they either derail or uncouple - which causes them to be removed from the layout.  I love the look of them and am thinking of ways to solve the problems.  More weight might make them track better, and I am either going to try to bend up the couplers, or replace with scale.

Francine

 

 

Francine,

I’m sorry to hear about your disappointment with the AM heavyweights. I have an early set of PRR that gets continuous running under the Xmas tree – and we’re talking about years of running – all of it flawlessly. On some of them I’ve body mounted Kadee #5 couplers, which limits the radius they can handle. Most have the couplers from AM, though on one I talgo (is that the correct word) mounted a Flyer link on one end so I could use it as a transition car for my ’48 K5. Weight might help, but I don’t think they really need it.

What kind of tracking problems are you having? Something like backing moves with scales wheels? Or jumping off at turnouts, on curves or just when you look at them? What kind of rail do they have trouble on?

Anybody else?

Tom Stoltz in Maine

I will second what Tom says. I have never had any tracking problems with the AM heavyweights on Gilbert track or on my semi scale layout with the SHS/MTH track and custom laid turnouts. I did have a few problems with three out of the eighteen cars derailing when backing through some of the #6 turnouts into the passenger yard. The cause was low hanging couplers. Since I replaced all the 4 wheel trucks with the AM 6 wheel trucks all these issues were resolved and the cars look better as well. The AM cars now operate without any issues.

I should have responded long ago, but a lot of life got in the way. That said, let me say the Reading coach roofs from Pre-size models, for AM heavyweight cars, are the best on the market… far superior to anything that came before. The rivet detail has to be seen in person to be believed. But what really knocked my sockets off are the Garland roof vents. To say it simply, they are correct. And affordable so putting 16 on them on a coach won’t break the bank.

If you are after the Reading look, this stuff is of scale modeling grade and I couldn’t recommend them more. Thank you Steve, you have saved me a lot of work and delivered a far better product than I could have done.

Tom Stoltz  in Maine

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