Looking for freight trucks to replace the terrible ones on my Lionel Friendship Train cars.

Sadly the wonderful sprung truck Lionel used prior to these new ones has yet to be replaced. Not sure which trucks you have.

I have had good performance from Lionel, MTH and K-Line sprung trucks.  Sadly they all cost- a lot- over $30 a pair.

Some of the newer trucks run OK- even some that have plastic frames and metal wheels.  But they are spotty.  So I run the car, then address the ones that seem to derail.  I doubt that springs in the trucks do much to improve performance- but I think all metal truck frames do improve performance due to the added weight.

A "beater" car might have nice sprung trucks.  I sometimes have removed the sprung trucks from an older freight car- like Lionel Standard O.  These are sometimes available for in the low-$20s- look at the train shows or online.

The newer Lionel trucks have two differences versus the older version. The truck and coupler pivot together. On the older one the coupler could also  pivot on it’s own with a self centering spring. Weaver used a similar design like the new version forever and I don’t remember an issue derailing trains. With the newer truck the wheels have a flat profile. The Weaver trucks had a fast angle wheel. I’m wondering if just swapping wheelsets would help.

You hate to spend money replacing trucks. But if your going that route. If you attend train shows. I’d follow Mike’s advice and be on the lookout for older cars with trucks that will work. That way your not paying shipping. I use Atlas trucks on project cars. Will often buy a car if the price is right just for parts.

Hello Ron. I completely agree - the trucks on the Friendship cars are complete junk. I’ve swapped out the couplers with the replacements provided by Lionel service and the cars still pull themselves off the track - even on large curves. They should’ve been listed in the catalog as O72 min curve!

My fix is the use of donor cars. I find older scale cars with the awesome original version of the scale sprung trucks and swap them out. Train shows are the best source since shipping has become so expensive.

I bought 200+ pieces of Lionel scale rolling stock from ~2012 through the release of the Friendship cars (mostly new or NOS).  Since then, I have bought nearly zero - I budget replacement trucks into the purchase equation and very few things have met the threshold. The cheapening of the scale trucks for cost reasons (I never believed the Kadee coupler story - it makes no logical business sense) eliminated my interest in the product.

@Mike Wyatt @Dave_C @Rider Sandman

Thank you for your inputs.  I am going to York and finding replacement trucks is my priority this trip.  I have a couple other cars from that period that also need replacements, so I need 7-8 pair.  Looking for older Lionel seems to be the best bet.

With York being next week, any pre-2015 scale car for $25 and under is a good donor for trucks and other bits. The guy who just lays out freight cars on the table over by the Trainworld corner of the Orange hall might be a good place to check, as would Gryzboski's who sometimes has some old stock in the booth. And then there's all the member halls where you can probably amass the rest, but it'll take some poking around.

I stuck an MTH freight truck with EOT on one of my Lionel Rocket Booster buffer cars, that worked out well.