Menards UTLX Tank Cars

Good to hear a positive post.  We always get the negatives but very rarely do we hear about the ones that are good right out of the box.  I also like your Pocono Northwest livery.

Nice!  I have 6 arriving this week.  Glad to see you have had no issues. Looking fwd to getting mine even more now!

I got this one, but it not quite 100%.  It rolls way better than the older boxcars, obviously the plastic trucks don't have near the friction of the metal ones on the boxcars, it's like night and day!. These are very light, they could do with some added weight, that's something I may have to consider.  I suspect running these in a long consist would be problematic if you didn't put them at the tail of the train.

However, as seems standard, the wheelsets are still not gauged correctly, they are about .04" too narrow.  This is slightly better than the .05-.055 of the older boxcars, but still not right.  On the bright side, it didn't have the issues going through my Ross double-slip switches as the boxcars do, just that little difference seems to help.  I'm not sure why they can't finally get the wheels right, this would seem to be a trivial adjustment.

Yes I received 18 cars hoping for the best. I also think they need to address there truck issue. Out of the 18 , 6  cars have bad trucks also 4  cars had couplers that were broken.  The other cars no problems yet. The car's are very light and I like John would like to add weight to them. Any ideas where to put added weight and how much?

For tank cars I drill a hole, usually in the bottom.  Drop in enough lead (or bismuth) BB shot, chase it with some glue, and plug the hole.  Turn the car upright and leave it long enough for the glue to set and hold the BB shot on the bottom, and they're done.  The trick is getting the glue to dry in a sealed car, sometimes it takes quite a while.

Last time I did it, I used a liquid epoxy like you use for table-tops, that eliminated the need for air to dry it.

John. How much total weight would you add?

Well, the car is 9" long, so to bring it up to NMRA weight standards, that would be a total of 14 ounces.  The car now weighs 7 ounces, so add another 7 ounces.  For lack of a better yardstick, I normally just stick to NMRA weight guidelines.  For O-gauge, that's 5 ounces + an ounce per inch of length.

I drill a hole, carefully fill to desired weight with a sand and water/glue mixture and allow to set. makes a hug difference on the Menards stock

Yep, boxcars are easy, tank cars like these are a bit more difficult.

Reminds me of a product that I used in trapping material in driver golf heads. It was a adhesive glue called tackum. I think I will order some and give it a try.  The thing about it was not waiting for long cure time , it set up in 10 minutes.

@Bill Grafmiller posted:

Reminds me of a product that I used in trapping material in driver golf heads. It was a adhesive glue called tackum. I think I will order some and give it a try.  The thing about it was not waiting for long cure time , it set up in 10 minutes.

Hard to imagine being able to use that for the tank cars, you need something liquid to squirt in the hole as a rule.

John the stuff I used in my golf club repair shop was soft liquid. It really would work well in trapping lose materials.  I will give it a go and follow up how it works

The proof is in the testing I suspect.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, the car is 9" long, so to bring it up to NMRA weight standards, that would be a total of 14 ounces.  The car now weighs 7 ounces, so add another 7 ounces.  For lack of a better yardstick, I normally just stick to NMRA weight guidelines.  For O-gauge, that's 5 ounces + an ounce per inch of length.

Unfortunately unsweetened Cocoa weighs 3 oz for every cup and I don't think the tanker would hold 2 plus cups

John

That Swiss miss is good stuff