Can someone take a picture of the underside of an Atlas troop sleeper car with the trucks rotated to the side? I want to modify one to add steps at the end corners but they might foul the turning of the trucks, and the model I own only has the 2R trucks which might not have the same clearances as 3R trucks.
Thanks.
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The radius of the curves that your troop sleeper has to negotiate will also be an important factor.
Well, what I mean is that the radius of the curves you use will determine how much swing the trucks require -- they will need more room to swing on a small radius curve than on a large curve.
I am not a 3-rail modeler, but I believe (based on converting some Atlas boxcars) that the Atlas 3-rail trucks are the same as the Atlas 2-rail tucks, just with different axles/wheels. So you should be able to run your 2-rail troop sleeper through one of your curves and see if there is enough room for steps. If there is, then change the axles/wheels to 3-rail and add the steps.
Here is the issue... Atlas specifies 0-45 radius curves on their website (I assume that they mean 0-45 diameter) but that is with only tiny little corner stirrup steps on the cars that won't interfere with the truck swing. But some railroads like the Bangor and Aroostook added swing-down corner steps which are MUCH LARGER than the tiny corner stirrups (see picture here: http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=1282), and if I want to model the cars with those larger steps I need to figure out how much swign the trucks will have on 0-45 curves.
I only have a pair of 2-rail trucks for these cars and the swing might not be the same as with 3-rail trucks.
As I said before, in my limited experience the Atlas 3-rail trucks are the same as the 2-rail trucks (just different wheels) -- so they have the same pivot point and the same swing. Therefore, you can test your clearances just by using the 3-rail trucks you already have. If I'm wrong about that, I'm sure someone with more knowledge of 3-rail equipment will correct me.
To put it another way -- Atlas does not make different trucks for 3-rail versus 2-rail operation. That would not make sense economically. The difference between them is the design of the wheels (2-rail versus 3-rail), presence or absence of a pick-up roller, and presence or absence of an attached (3-rail style) coupler. Again, this is based on my experience with Atlas 3-rail cars I have purchased and converted to 2-rail: you can simply remove the claw coupler and put 2-rail replacement Atlas wheel sets into the trucks. The truck swing is unchanged.
See if this helps any, the coupler looks to be more of a limiter on the end body cap vs the trucks. Existing steps clears the trucks by 1/4”. My smallest diameter loop is 048, so haven’t tried it on anything smaller.
Thank you all. This is helpful!
I don't have the Atlas version, so my photos are of an original Weaver troop sleeper.
Here is the max truck swing.
I have an O44 curve in my staging yard (made with Gargraves flex track), and here is one of the cars on that curve.
Like jstraw124 said, the limiting factor is coupler swing. On a tighter curve, the truck would be able to swivel a little more, but the couplers between cars would bind and derail the cars.
The first thing the coupler hits is the wire grab on the car end.
What this means for me is that I will likely need to deviate from the prototype and either make my corner stairs more narrow, or mount them farther out from the side of the car to give the trucks more clearance to swing.
I am wanting to do the BAR caboose conversion, but 2 rail. If anyone is willing to post the same pictures on a 2 rail Atlas version I would greatly appreciate it.
Vince in New Mexico
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