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Over the past couple of years i have purchased quite a bit of Menards rolling stock, and have always like them quite a bit. Over the past couple of months, I have ordered probably 8 new pieces. For some reason, almost every piece of rolling stock I buy lately has an issue with with at least one of the trucks wheel's not turning freely. I have sent a few back for replacement and have also managed to fix a couple ox box cars myself. I wonder if anyone else is having the same problem (I would assume many have). Today I received the Valvoline Tank Car and this time the axle seem to be bent, so on one of the trucks the wheel would almost come to a complete stop if you didn't force it to turn. I am not sure what what is going on. I will continue to buy their rolling stock because it is still a great value for what you get, but I am really at a loss as to why this happens so often. I am  curious to hear from others about recent experiences.

Cheers, Pete

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I have several Manards cars, bought each when they have the free car promo. The Ford P/U is next just gotta decide on a car.

I digress- the earlier cars have all been fine. The last one I got was a NH box car. Looks great but one truck kept derailing. I checked the wheel gauge against some Lionel cars and they were a little bit too close together. It was a simple fix and the car runs fine now. I also put a drop of oil on the axle points.

2020-01-04 08.34.40

Bob

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  • 2020-01-04 08.34.40

Pete,

I stopped buying Menard's rolling stock over a year ago. After the 5th or 6th straight dud (all truck related) I'd had enough. Ranged from relatively minor to completely hosed assembly. The worst was when I purchased one of those multi-packs of box cars and all but one was defective.

 Too bad. Price was right.

Last edited by johnstrains

Here's an idea.  If Menards has the car you want, and for a lesser price than say MTH or Lionel sell the same car, or it Menards is the only manufacturer, buy the car, and if possible, buy some Lionel trucks for a few bucks more and change them out.  If that's not possible, see if you have some old Lionel rolling stock that have matching attachment styles and cannibalize those.

The reason I say this.  Menards has an M&M's hopper I really like.  But, if the trucks are suspect, I'm not sure I want to buy that one.  I don't think MTH or Lionel or K-Line make the hopper I speak of.  Oh they make M&M advertised products, just not that particular one.  I have no idea how Menards attaches their trucks to the body of the car, but if it's the simple tiny screw through a tiny hole, or even a plastic pin that spreads out at the bottom through a large hole, I can work with that.  I have two Lionel hoppers that were made in the 70's that use the pin through the big hole method, and I've replaced several trucks by buying some good inexpensive Lionel truck sets.  Menards makes some really cool military flat bed cars.  My theme is the food and beverage industry using the old billboard advertising.  But if I were into running a military train, Menards has some great stuff out there for one just like that.  Would hate to lose out because of truck issues.

Just a suggestion.  Cost a lot more than oil on the axle at the wheel, which is a great idea.  But if the axles are suspect and the wheels don't spin, what else did they mess up.

And on the subject of rolling stock and trucks, why are Kadee couplers all the rage?  What is it about those that makes them so wonderful?  Just asking, not judging.  I have seen all sorts of videos about how to install them, but what is it about them that makes them so sought after?  Or am I missing something?

Lionel model 6-14078, set of 2 in a box.  Model Train Stuff.com has them for $18 minus what shipping will cost.  Several other places have them if you do a google search but not for 18 bucks.  They are the tiny screw attachment type.  I have bought several pair of them and had no problems what so ever with them.  I bought 3 pair for some custom made flat beds I built, all fit perfectly, were the right height, and to date not one has frozen up or stopped spinning or required even a drop of oil.

If knowledge/memory serves, I believe Menard's rolling stock has three different styles of trucks.  There are plastic trucks, metal Bettendorf-style trucks, and metal roller bearing-style trucks.

I like the Bettendorf style trucks the best, because they fit my modeled time frame the best.  However, I think they are the most problematic of the styles, simply from factory assembly techniques (not always the best).  Easy to overcome the shortcomings if you are mechanically inclined (fortunately I am).  Maybe not so much if you're not mechanically inclined.

The one main thing I do with the Bettendorf-style trucks, since I don't mess with magnetic uncoupling, is to remove the complete bottom plate uncoupler assemblies from the axles, and leave them off.  Once this plate is out of the way, anything else wrong with the trucks becomes a lot easier to deal with.  To remove the trucks from the frame or body, rivets can be ground off and replaced with nuts and bolts, or pressed-in pins can be pried out and re-used.  Bent axles can be straightened, out-of-gauge wheels can be gauged correctly and CA glued or Loc-Tited, and stamped steel truck frames can be straightened as required.  And if you didn't make a mess out of those bottom plates when you removed them, they can be re-installed too if you really want to.

Tearing a truck down to it's basic parts and reassembling it would go a long ways towards never having to be at the mercy of the poor factory assembly Gods again.  Twenty bucks for an O-gauge train car is still a pretty good deal, even if you have to tweak it a little bit.

Yardmaster96 posted:

Here's an idea.  If Menards has the car you want, and for a lesser price than say MTH or Lionel sell the same car, or it Menards is the only manufacturer, buy the car, and if possible, buy some Lionel trucks for a few bucks more and change them out.  If that's not possible, see if you have some old Lionel rolling stock that have matching attachment styles and cannibalize those.

The reason I say this.  Menards has an M&M's hopper I really like.  But, if the trucks are suspect, I'm not sure I want to buy that one.  

I wouldn’t put Lionel or MTH trucks on a Menard’s car.  That would kind of defeat the purpose of getting an inexpensive Menard’s car.  That said, I’ve put MTH trucks that cost me about $15 a pair on about a dozen Lionel 6456 hoppers that cost me about $10 each. 

Most of my problems with Menard’s cars involve the gauge.  It’s usually about 1 to 1.5 mm too narrow and easily fixed. 

I bought the 4 car M&M set (1 hopper and 3 box cars).  Not sure if my set is representative, but it had no problems out of the box.

I have only 2 Menard's cars. The box car derailed on curves until I noticed that a rear wheel hit the low-hanging brake tank. Once I bent it up a bit, the problem disappeared.

As for Kadees, I like the smaller size, but more importantly, coupling happens at a very low speed. No need to smash the cars together. And no need to buy a lot of uncoupling tracks. You can fit the uncoupling magnets anywhere you want. I've truck-mounted my couplers , which takes more work, but with 36" radius track, it's the only way to go and they work fine. 

Terry

Thanks Terry.  Appreciate the information.  I have no real plans to ever try them, but was never able to fully grasp their appeal.  They looked like any other plastic coupler I'd ever seen.  So it's their coupling sensitivity that makes them appealing?  I can see that.  Whenever I try to slowly back a loco into a car, both couplers open, they appear to shut, but I've learned to move out at 1 smph until I see that they latched.  Since we are on the subject, how is the latching strength?  I have several cars on my layout that when they are part of a 60 car pull, they come apart.  The only way I knew to fix that was tie them closed and forget unlatching them the scientific way.  I have to use my 0-5-0 hand switcher separate the cars.  I've discussed this phenomenon in another thread a couple years ago, but other than whatever method they used to "tie them shut", I never did get any shop fix for it.  One member railed against rigging them and told us to "fix the problem" instead of succumbing to the use of quick fixes.  Ok, perhaps some knowledge as to what is causing it and how he repairs the issue when it happens to him.  STOP THAT!!!! is not a fix.

I bought a Menards ?11 inch? flat car way back when. The trucks were attached with rivets not screws and they were loose. The car would wobble side to side as it went down the track. I tried to tighten the rivets (did not know what I was doing) and ended up with a car that not only wobbled but was also warped end to end.........I showed the mess to a friend who chastised me. He could have fixed the rivets. He had also purchased a set of the longer version - ?14 inch?. Those trucks were attached with screws and he had no issues. His cars looked great and ran just fine but I never did buy another Menards car after that.

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