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Many years back I purchased a 3-rail Williams brass PS-4.  The price was great, but it had some issues.  One being that the pony truck had sintered wheel to replace the original.  The second issue and the more important one is that the trailing truck has a broken frame and is missing the wheels. 

Three questions if I may ask:

  1. It looks like the trailing truck is a late Hodges truck.  Where might I find a replacement?  I see an early Hodges on that site, but it is not quite the same.  Is my best bet to wait and find one from a parts donor?
  2. What size is the wheel for the trailing truck of this locomotive?  I may see what I can do to fix the frame and simply replace the wheel.  
  3. Finally, what are the correct trucks for the tender?  Yes the one I have is short, but I know they are not buckeye trucks, just six wheel trucks.  A very low priority on the list.

Thoughts?  I realize there are much better versions of this locomotive around, but this is one I have.

Any and all thoughts are appreciated.

Last edited by GG1 4877
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@Strummer posted:

Seems to me there is a Hodges trailing truck currently listed on eBay...but you probably already know that. 

Mark in Oregon

That's the one I'm looking at.  Interestingly it is slightly different than all the PS-4 photos I see.  I suspect because it is the early version.  I still might pick it up though.  You never know when you might need one!

@bob2 posted:

SP never had a PS-4 - maybe you are thinking Southern?

CLW has both versions of the Hodge truck, and the kit comes with a spoked 45" wheelset.  Some assembly required.

The Southern PS-4 used both 4 wheel and 6 wheel trucks.  The 6-wheel trucks were Commonwealth, not Buckeye.

Bob - with that information I could also buy a wheel set and repair the one I have.  It should be a simple soldering job to fix, but an upgraded version sure would look nice.  Of course that leads to the slippery slope of upgrading other parts of the loco .     Also thank for the information on the tender trucks.  I'll have to do more research. 

Jonathan, Lionel has produced at least two scale-sized releases of the Southern PS4 Pacific.  Although they play fast-and-loose with scale fidelity in many cases, I think in this case they used the correct style trailing truck.  It probably doesn't have the quality of a Precision Scale part but if you just want to complete your loco and get it back on the rails, the Lionel part might be an option.

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