Athearn Symington Truck era help?

Check here to see if anything looks familiar: Symington

(semi-unrelated)  :

I changed the search term to "Symington xl70" just for giggles, and spotted a photo of the prototype for MPC's oddball freight truck. It was posted in a two-year-old thread from this very forum.

---PCJ

Nope, still no luck with the links, but many thankyous for your suggestions.  Here's a pic of the Athearn truck in question.  While browsing my collection of files and photos, I did find something similar but made by National as a r/b equipped version of the B-1.  The pedestals and axleboxes looked very similar to the Symington, but of course, the bolster area is like the plain-journal B-1, with the two round holes down low - it was in Railmodel Journal April 1990 pg64.

Regards

Paul Woods

Whangarei, NZ.

NYC steam rules the rails at my place!

the use of roller bearing trucks started in the early to mid 1960's. the symington truck is similar to the 100T ASF ride control RB truck (made by KTM). a 70T version is similar with slightly lighter weight sideframes. the symington could be used in a pinch.

Try an internet search on:

Modelers Guide To Freight Car Trucks

It's a pdf

Also search on: Symington-Gould

Yes, I have the Modeller's Guide to Freight Car Trucks; no luck there.  This is looking like another one of those 'What on Earth were they thinking?' models, where a heap of money is spent on tooling for a prototype that was so rare & obscure that no-one wants it, while far more common prototypes get ignored.

Regards

Paul Woods

Whangarei, NZ.

Check this out.  I couldn't easily open it on the iPad, but it does indicate that the turning point was just after the demise of mainline steam.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist...zine/mrh-2013-05-may

As for obscure, I believe that is a very common truck, both with caps like that and with rotating bearing caps.  If you model the 1940s, Andrews solid bearings would be better.  You want obscure, try shelf couplers.

When Athearn cut the moulds for these trucks, there wasn't the interest in precision modeling that there is today.  I've been told these are a "typical" early roller bearing truck of 70 tons, usually under hoppers and flats from after WWII.

Paul

Your trucks were used on express boxcars that ran in passenger trains and needed the high speed safety and reliability of roller bearings.  Check out NYC head end equipment to see if you can put those trucks to work.

See the steam era freight car sight for more information on the GN 2500 series express boxcars.  I think you will like the trucks.

http://www.steamerafreightcars...dend/gn2500main.html

Ah, my cup runneth over!  Now that I know the time period to look for, it gets much easier to spot examples under cars.  Unfortunately I am modelling pre-WW2 - apparently I like to make life hard for myself - so the Symington trucks might be difficult to justify.  Lots of Andrews trucks required for sure; I see a few on Ebay, but the postage involved in getting stuff to my corner of the world (and the prices being asked by the sellers, for that matter) means I'm probably better off making them myself - I have the means to, already done a fair bit of brass casting work....it is finding the time that is the hard part right now!

Many thanks to everyone for helping me out

Regards

Paul Woods

Whangarei, NZ.

Paul

I'm not an NYC guy.  However, they hauled a huge amount of mail and express between New York, Boston, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago.  Most of the US population lived in or near those cities in the period you are modeling.  Take a look at the NYC head end cars and see if they used those trucks on any cars in the late 30s before you let them go.

As for Andrews trucks if you have any Atlas USRA cars they likely already have them.

The prices on Athearn trucks has been creeping upwards steadily.  Then again, they are still probably the most economical available and roll very well after replacing the plastic wheels with Intermountain sets.  Consider if your base price were trucks from Rich Yoder and then look back at the prices + shipping.  Not sure if eBay is the bast source, but you could put a Want To Buy ad over on that part of this forum, on the Yahoo group, O Scale Yard Sale, and on the O Scale Trains forum all for free.

If I had spares, I'd trade with you for Archbars!

Time.......our most precious commodity.