Lowered MTH Auto Rack car

Great results and a nice solution to an all too common problem of MTH freight cars sitting way too high. With the car now sitting as low as it does the fix remedy can't be seen.

Nice job Ben!  Could you include a picture of the underside of the other auto rack to give a sort of before and after look at truck instaalation?

What does the lowering do about the coupler alignment with other cars?

Now for the next big challenge. Auto rack trucks are much further in from the car ends than MTH and Lionel O'guage. What's the possibility of relocating the trucks inward, and more importantly, what then happens when the car negotiates O-72 and larger curves. I'm running everything larger than O-80 (and only two sections of that track).

This is the same problem with the Piggy-back Trailer cars which seem to be built on a similarly long-wheelbase car.

Provided a height gauge is used for setting the couplers for all cars, lowering the car will have no effect. You will just add or subtract the appropriate amount of shims to keep all couplers on all cars the same.

Longer cars with inset trucks and body mounted couplers can be a problem. You have to provide for enough coupler shank swing to negotiate the tighter radius. One could also mount the coupler and pocket on a extension arm that is attached to the truck so that as the truck turns, so will the coupler. Just like in regular O gauge.

If you run those large curves you won't even notice a problem at all. I modified many of these along with every other MTH car and no problems at all, even with Kadee couplers...

I am running Kadee 805's on all my cars, for these auto racks I removed about 1/16" from the front edges of the coupler box to allow for slightly more swing. On my layout the tightest spot is an O-72 switch that branches off to a 12" straight and then another   O-72 curve forming an S-curve. The 2 of these cars can go right through this area with no issues at all. To mount the Kadee's on these cars after the mods you do have to remove the plastic in the end sill where the couplers will mount. 1 small shim was all that was needed to bring it to the correct height and they were also screwed directly to the underside of the body.

Thanks for the compliments and interest,

Ben

Ben that's a very nice looking job.  Makes a ton of difference!

Nice work Ben. I acquired and converted a fleet of these, Even after MTH finally moved the trucks to the correct in board position, I cut the frame ends off and mounted the trucks into the car body to lower it and installed Kadees. They make for a nice train (see the video below). I have one of the Lionel full-length cars, which I've converted to Kadees and lowered (though it didn't need much) and I have an order in for some more. I'm not sure whether I will hang on to my MTH racks or not as the Lionel cars become available.

RM

Thanks Rich. That's a pretty nice train in the video. You must have quite a long run for that much train! I was thinking about approximately 15-18 of these cars in a train given their length. My layout is going to be 26'x26'. Been researching them a bit and seems like for my era they were pretty new, 1977-1980 Chessie System. Have to stay in that time frame so I can run my beautiful Chessie T-1. I'm very picky about details given my many years as a car modeller with everything as it was from the factory. I like the weathering you have done though I imagine I will only be giving mine some road dirt on the trucks and bodies. Nice work and thanks for the vid.  

That's a whole lotta auto racks... and they look good. The train looks like the ones on the CSX and N-S that run through Louisville many times a day. We got too big Ford plants in town that feed them as well as being a through line from lots of other places. Can you send some pictures of the steps in the conversion. I have one rack and want to get more and would like to do the lowering.

Very nice write up Rich, that's about exactly how I did mine. I remove the trucks from the frame then place the frame back in and drill the new mounting holes right through the originals in the frame. Keeps the drill where I want it.

Also if you are running these on O-72 you will want to notch the inner edges of the side sills where the trucks will turn for a little extra clearance. I use a dremel with a cut off wheel and just make half circle in the edge. See the picture of the underside and you will see what I mean.

Ben