One of my Atlas O - 3-rail - covered hopper car trucks fall apart while running the other night. The die cast metal truck frame broke at two places. I have 10 or so of these cars, and noted that a few others have what I describe as paint line cracks on the trucks - not cracks in the metal that I can see per se, rather just a bare metal line (at the same location where the broken one broke apart). These are what I thought, were very high quality cars. Has this happenedto anyone else's cars?
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Yes, I've had this happen and when I used 3 rail couplers, those broke into pieces too.
these trucks are junk!!!!!
IIRC there was mention on here of some with metal issues. Think it also included the bolsters and a few other parts. Wonder if these were manufactured at the same time as the Weaver Troop cars.
Contact Atlas. I'm sure they will make right by you.
The dreaded 'zinc pest'. Don't bother talking with Atlas. They like to play 'dumb' about it. I've heard that MTH has offered free replacements for some of their products in the past. Spoke to an Atlas service Rep at the Big E show two years ago. Might as well have been talking to a tree stump. Had about ten cars do that from a specific time period around 2010. There are more posts about it if you feel like searching.
I had sent e-mail requests to Atlas the day this happened, still no response.
This happen to the commonwealth trucks on my REA reefers.
Bill Seratelli at Atlas sent me replacements.
Chinese pot metal...a pair of 70-ton trucks (3-rail) disintegrated in my hand last year. Atlas seems to have corrected this issue with their newer scale-width sideframe trucks.
Zinc rot, thanks to Chinese scrap metal a composite of cheap inferior crap.
For replacement trucks, does anyone know if any manufacturers' trucks will fit?
I'll give Atlas another week or so to respond back, if not I'll have to find them on my own.