Anybody have experience with Weaver "Ultra-Line" 40 foot boxcars?

There are a few different styles of Weaver boxcars, single door, double door, outside braced wood sheathed, stock cars, and refrigerated wood side boxcars. Depending on when they were made will determine whether they have Delrin (plastic), trucks, or die cast trucks. Also, whether or not the current owner/seller has replaced plastic with die cast. Weaver rolling stock is for the most part 1/4" to the foot scale in size. The level of detail is less then some other manufacturer's, but the two main qualities if you will are competitive price, and most products made in America.

Pictured is a Weaver 40 footer and a K-Line 6400 series model.  The Weaver is 11.5 coupler to coupler and the K-line is 10.5 same.

The Weaver is advertised as scale length and height.  They came with either metal or plastic trucks.  Definitely 'O Scale'

Hope that helps.

https://ogrforum.com/...59#44651683722384359

The boxcars tended to be very lightweight. I have always had to add quite a bit of weight to them. I think all the Weaver boxcars are very nice, even if not heavily detailed.

I have several. The 40 footers I have are all PS-1's and are full scale. Most came with plastic trucks that are compatible with all other 3-rail equipment. I have a couple with diecast trucks. The wheelsets are metal on the plastic trucks. As already mentioned, they are a little light, even with the metal trucks. They are nice cars, about on par with MTH premier cars. To the best of my knowledge, Weaver didn't make any semi-scale models.

I have over 20 and I love them.  The light weight doesn't bother me as I can pull more.  I tend to put them near the end of the train to prevent stringlining on curves and when I'm running 50+ car trains I'm always running 072 or larger.  Nice cars for the price and the ones with metal trucks have a little more heft for those who need it.

No problems with compatibility with other cars.

I added weight to all of mine.  Not a fan of the plastic trucks, but the ones with the metal trucks are nice.

Easy to weather.  John

At one time I had 350 Weaver cars, didn't know I did that,until I took inventory.   Personally my favorite and I like the Plastic trucks and wheels they roll very well. ( and quite ) I add some weight but no where near the recommended amount.

The Weaver PS-1 cars are scale width and length for PS-1s - Pullman Standard etc.    They are pretty much the same dimensions as the 1937 ARA car which Intermountain/red caboose made.    The the 1937 ARA is a model of a car with Riveted side assembly while the PS-1 is a car with welded sides.    I think the whole PS series was a set of cars that Pullman Standard designed to be welded not riveted, including the gons and covered hoppers.

Weaver also picked up the molds and issued a 40 ft car that is lower in height.    This model is made from the original Crown Model Products molds.    It is a model of a much older car I think, a 1923 ARA car.    It is still a 40 ft car but I think the interior height was 9 ft or 9 1/2 feet as opposed to the PS-1 which 10 1/2 feet.    The 1923 ARA car is basically the same dimensions as the PRR X29 which Atlas did/does the very nice model.  

I don't know anything about the stockcars, I never had any.    I did have a few of the weaver reefers and the OSB boxcars.    The reefer are lower height wood side cars.    The Outside braced boxcars are based about the same dimensions as the 1923 ARA steel car.    They are based on a slightly more modern prototype than the USRA cars.   The rib spacing is wider.    There was an article in one of the magazines some years ago that described those particular OSB cars and who had them etc.    

All in all, the Weaver cars seem to be scale size and based on real prototypes.    All the detail is cast on. rather than add on.    Lionel bought some of the Weaver molds and came out with the "Lion-Scale" line using those bodies.

Weaver made 1:48 O scale equipment; no "Traditional" or RK here. He started out as a 2RO manufacturer, but most of the market was in 3RO, so more sales. Weaver always carried 2R and 3R versions. Their rolling stock was for the most part excellent, no-frills product, my preference anyway. Some later pieces were pretty elaborate imported items. Mr Weaver has been called  "the Irv Athearn of O-scale".

They are light, but that is why the universe invented lead weights (I cut up a lead roof vent from Home Depot for mine). I like the plastic trucks just fine - it was the plastic couplers that were pretty bad. I treat them as dummies. Fortunately the trucks and couplers are separate pieces.

Weaver - possibly the greatest loss of all the gone 3RO manufacturers - and they actually manufactured most of their stuff.

Excellent information from all!

Thanks,

Mannyrock

Just saw this thread.  I agree with all of the observations above; however, I would note that some of the add-on details are fragile, especially the stirrups under the ladders at the bottom of each corner.

I have quite a few Weavers. With a little work you can replace the plastic trucks with MTH trucks. The metal Weaver trucks can be hard to find. The plastics don't work well (for me) coupling and uncoupling. That said, the Weaver truck design is very simple. Not as smooth as the very best MTH and Lionel (NOT the awful new Lionel trucks) but very few moving parts and very easy to change over to Kadee's. I wonder who owns the patent for Weaver trucks.

@Scott J posted:

I wonder who owns the patent for Weaver trucks.

MTH sells the Weaver bettendorf trucks as part of their product line. I don't know if they own or just have the rights to them.

@D500 posted:

Weaver made 1:48 O scale equipment; no "Traditional" or RK here. He started out as a 2RO manufacturer, but most of the market was in 3RO, so more sales. Weaver always carried 2R and 3R versions. Their rolling stock was for the most part excellent, no-frills product, my preference anyway. Some later pieces were pretty elaborate imported items. Mr Weaver has been called  "the Herb Athearn of O-scale". ...snip...

I believe that he was Irv Athearn. Note that at first I read that as Herb Alpert and thought ?????

Anyway, I prefer the Delrin trucks with Intermountain metal wheelsets. They just roll, roll, roll ........................................

As for the LionScale, I have one covered hopper that took me longer to gather the tools than to replace the three-rail wheelsets with NWSL two-rail wheelsets and KD couplers. An excellent car.

I believe that he was Irv Athearn. Note that at first I read that as Herb Alpert and thought ?????

You are correct, sir, as someone on SNL used to say (I think...).

Thanks for the laugh - not only the Herb Alpert part, but more because there is an "old" model RR club in the Mobile area to which I have belonged since the 1990's. The founder and perennial head of it was named Herb. "Herb" must be imprinted in my brain as model RR-connected.

You know, we were always saying "What does Herb think?", "Did Herb put that in the newsletter?", "The meeting is at Herb's" and on and on. Herb died ten or so years ago; the club still exists.

The plastic trucks have potential to warp and the plastic couplers can break apart.

Fortunately MTH sells replacement Weaver Models die-cast metal trucks. Check with an MTH dealer for new trucks.

Andrew

I use the LionScale trucks and couplers on my Weaver freight cars. I buy them when Lionel has their half off parts sale. Can’t go wrong at $15.00 a pair!

Pretty sure Weaver supplied undecorated blanks to Crown Model Products, who then painted, assembled, boxed, and distributed. Their smaller AAR scale boxcars are interchangeable.

Those cars are all plastic except for the wheels.  I have to add weight as the cars are too light and the plastic trucks sometimes twist/flex and don't track well without enough weight to keep them flat. They have been particularly troublesome with Ross switches on the club layout.  I also had the typical coupler issues and zip tied the uncoupler arm to keep them in the closed position.  I've switched to mostly Atlas and MTH for rolling stock as they operate thr best for me personally.

@D500 posted:

I believe that he was Irv Athearn. Note that at first I read that as Herb Alpert and thought ?????

You are correct, sir, as someone on SNL used to say (I think...).

Thanks for the laugh - not only the Herb Alpert part, but more because there is an "old" model RR club in the Mobile area to which I have belonged since the 1990's. The founder and perennial head of it was named Herb. "Herb" must be imprinted in my brain as model RR-connected.

You know, we were always saying "What does Herb think?", "Did Herb put that in the newsletter?", "The meeting is at Herb's" and on and on. Herb died ten or so years ago; the club still exists.

I went to one of that club's meeting when I was in Mobile with the Army Corps of Engineers for the Hurricane Frederick (1979) clean-up and went to one of the meetings over on the Florida side of the bay. The memorable thing that had stuck with me was the fact that the meeting host had the two builder's plates from the one-off Ingalls Shipbuilding GM&O locomotive. I asked to see one; he said something to the effect of "Oh, its over on the workbench, I am using the backside for mixing two-part epoxy."!!   At least I got to see and hold one of the plates.

I guess then that we did not meet.

Not sure why this thread was revived.  The die cast trucks that Weaver offered as an alternative were as good as anyone's at the time.  Intermountain used them on their RTR O gauge cars.  With those diecast trucks car weight wasn't an issue.  At least that was my experience.  I sometimes wonder why Weaver did plastic trucks, but Lionel was still using them, and I suspect for model trains of the time on wider curves they were OK.

When CMT first came out they were billed as scale models of smaller prototypes.  Even if many cars like those graced our rails, that does not mean they did so wearing the paint schemes that CMT, Weaver and others put on them.  If Fidelity matters you might need to pull out your ORER or old pictures.