Lionel 86' High Cube 2-Railed

Scott,

Awesome! Thanks for posting your results especially regarding minimum curve radiuses realized when coupled to other shorter cars with this new lionel coupler box. These cars definitely will shrink a layout! When you add the 1/4 inch aluminum for additional coupler support that probably will also add the needed weight for these if they are a little light in weight. That car looks great, again, thanks for posting!

Travis

Looks great Scott.

Great info. Will your aluminum just be a .125 rectangle on the floor at the car end?

Beautiful car too!!

Wow. Was wondering how soon someone would convert one of these. Thanks for the report. Mine should be here sometime next week. I've been debating whether to 2-rail them or go 3RS, but Kadees will definitely be installed. The curve restriction is an interesting situation since the club layout operates 48" radius. I may have to make some additional mods to them.

Thanks for posting Scott.  The car looks great.  Just curious - how is the width of the car compared to other boxcars?  From the manufacturer photos the car looks slightly too narrow to me. I've been eyeing getting an 86' footer or two and also an auto rack or two, but wanted to make sure the width was near correct as when coupled to the Atlas 89' intermodal cars etc.  

Did you get the NWSL wheel replacements directly from them?

Thanks in advance and awesome job on the 2-railing.  

Don't want to hi-jack Scott's thread here but I figured I would post this here instead of start another thread in the 3RS forum about the same thing. I only converted 1 1/2 cars as I ran out of Kadee 746 couplers.  The only difference in my cars and Scott's cars (besides blue and red) is the wheels, as I still use the 3R wheel sets.

After removing the 3R coupler I added 1 ounce of weight on each end of the car. All that clunky stuff does have some weight to it, and the cars were under by an ounce anyway, as Scott mentioned above. Adding 2 ounces brings them up to 26.5, right where they should be. I also put the 4 screws and top plate that holds the 3R coupler back on just for the added weight. I guess I could have left those off and added more stick on weights. 

You can also see how the end of the car is lacking in the "meat" department for mounting the coupler. The whole coupler assembly really flexes as Scott mentioned so I will most like add some .080 or .100 styrene stock to the top of the floor. I also want to level the bottom of the floor (right above the rear of the coupler box) where the 3R slide holes are to keep the coupler from sagging as it does now.

I did NOT use the shims Lionel provided either. They made the couplers way too low. They are a little high w/o the shims, but because they sag a bit, they are just right for now. I may need to use a MicroMark shim once I beef up the floor and level out the draft gear box.

Excuse the crappy flash photos but its my ceiling layout in the bar so I don't have much choice. Spacing is good, and they clear my 072 curves without any issues.

Hi Railthunder,

I purchased the 36" wheelsets separately directly from NWSL p/n 8293-4 (I had a few sets on hand but just ordered a few more to finish the remaining cars). 

http://shop.osorail.com/produc...4&categoryId=193 

The cars only come with Lionel pizza-cutter wheels.  The only additional 2-Rail item enclosed is the scale coupler draft gear box.

The Inside Width "IW" stenciled on the car of 9'2" matched what I measured with a scale rule.  I attached a photo for comparison to an Atlas 60' Berwick boxcar in both width and length (note how long these new Lionel cars really are ).  Also note that Berwick boxcar may appear to be a little wider in the photo but understand that it is an outside braced car but carries the same "IW" dimension as the Lionel car so basically the same width.

Hope this helps.

Scott Kay

Austin, TX

Hi Martin,

The Intermountain wheelsets axles are too short to fit the Lionel truck and as best i can recall, the axle diameter is larger than the Lionels. They fit the Weaver plastic trucks and I believe the MTH roller bearing trucks. I have a few of the 86' cars coming and I will either use the NWSL 33" wheelsets, part #8292-4, or use the Atlas 70 ton trucks.

Travis

Thank you Dave and Travis.  I have used the IM wheels in plastic weaver RB.  They are so inexpensive I was hoping they could have wider utilitly in converting 3R to 2R.

Thanks again for  the info.

So you can't use 2 rail draft gear with the telescoping kinematic setup?

Mine came in yesterday. They're definitely "layout shorteners", need more weight, and the floor ends definitely need to be reinforced, but they're very nicely done. I'm probably going to switch them to scale wheels in addition to the Kadees. If they do CNW or an 8-door Santa Fe, I'll get more.