MPC Heavyweight Passenger Cars: Rewheeling opinions?

Those are equipped with four-wheel trucks, if I remember correctly. The trucks are rather light and tend to get affected by drag from the pickup rollers. Make sure the rollers are running as free as possible. Pop the wheel sets out, clean the needlepoint bearings and pockets in the trucks. A drop of plastic-safe oil where the axles ride in the side frames won't hurt -- even with the Delrin trucks, they can get a little gummed up.

I have a set of these, plus some extras to make up a fairly long Pennsy heavyweight train; I found that the best solution was to change out the four-wheel trucks for the later production die-cast six-wheel trucks. They look better and the extra weight actually improved the running -- those MPC cars are light -- and the electrical pickups work better. A postwar 682 will pull a string of 7, 8 or more of 'em with no sweat!

I like this idea; have you got a good source for the six-wheel trucks?  Thanks! 

Mitch

I had the Lionel Milwaukee Road set a long time ago. Also bought the add-on diner that had a six wheel truck, which indeed were much better, but the light had an eerie glow thru it. As I recall, the couplers are body mounted and non-centering on the original units, and could not be opened.

In my opinion, sell them for a loss and go buy an MTH Railking set of passenger cars and don't look back. Tons of passenger sets on the bay, especially Pennsy, from MTH, Lionel, Weaver, Golden Gate Depot, or Williams.

Then spend your time on something else on your layout.

I really like my MTH IC 18" passenger cars, look sharp, and since they are made of plastic small accidents don't ding off the paint and expose bare metal. The 18" and 21" really need O72 curves to look good.

Nice set. I had them paired with a Modern era 8551 Pennsy EP-5, but I let mine go.

Wouldn't mind finding another set.

Hi Mitch,

   IC probably offers the best advice. To install mpc 6 wheel trucks you will have to modify the body to clear the trucks. If you want to do that, we have the trucks in stock. P.N. 600-9536-080.

Bill

The Pennsylvania Baby Madison cars will not accept six-wheel trucks without modification.  Ditto the Milwaukee and B&O cars.  The tools were changed with the Blue Comet set to accept these trucks. 

Without mods, the trucks will hit the A/C boxes under the car.

Jon

Add the MPC Southern CRESCENT to that list.  That was the last set with 4-wheel trucks. Then the underframe was modified to clear 6-wheel trucks, as posted.

Two trucks with third-rail rollers will reduce flickering.

Off subject, given that 18" Ill. Central cars aren't at all what he needs, but the problem with the MTH Ill. Central cars that I've seen is the non-prototypical paint job - the brown is too light a shade, and the orange striping is way too wide. The best I've seen is the Lionel 15" aluminum City of New Orleans cars - their paint job is right on the money.

Hum!  Well, guess I'll stick to plan A, then, and simply refit the cars with postwar wheels and axles.  Thanks, all, for the input! 

Now, where's a good place to pick up a mess of postwar wheels and axles cheap?    Ditto for half-a-dozen or so of the snap-in third rail pickup units? 

Mitch

Just for reference, Lionel's newer small Madison cars have some significant improvements over the MPC versions. The same molds, it appears, but all of them now have six-wheel diecast trucks, dual pickups, finished interiors, overhead lighting, and the roofs come off by simply removing two screws at the bottom of the car.

The Pennsylvania versions I have are no. 25106 4-pak (combo, 2 coaches, observation) and no. 25111 2-pak (baggage and diner). I run them behind the small Pennsy Mikado Lionel did a few years ago (I think it's the same body as the LionChief Plus version) with TMCC and RailSounds 5, and a can motor. I'll be adding ERR cruise to it pretty soon. Here's a few pictures of the observation and one of the coaches. I added the figures, and painted the sinks and toilets white.  

Not the most popular, or common cars, The Polar express. They have four-wheel plastic trucks(with dual pickups) and are otherwise like the originals, except the tooling will accept/allow six-wheel diecast trucks.

Yes, there's been commentary about the PE Madisons' trucks. Obviously a cost consideration because of low-price requirements for that target market.

Those new Lionel Pennsy mini-heavyweights are a VAST improvement over the MPC versions! 

Way back in 1973, many of us were starved for some new Lionel and the "Milwaukee Special" set helped ease our appetite! 

It is the pickups on the MPC cars that cause the excess drag.  

More specifically, it's the axle wiper ground straps.  The Polar Express cars have 2 roller pickups vs. the 1 each on the Milwaukee cars, and the PE's roll much better. The early cars just have too much tension on the axles.

Yeah, which is why I wanna go with freewheeling postwar axles.  I figure that'll take most of the rolling friction out of the equation... 

Mitch

Mitch, the postwar wheels and axles need constant lubrication to keep them rolling freely. They will roll less freely than your present wheelsets. The postwar part #'s are 480-3 for the axle, and TC-70 for the flat tread wheels (not Fast Angle). The Train Tender has them.

Larry

That would be worse. Add up the total contact area to see the impact, and then consider the loss of the differential action of the "fast angle" wheels locked to the axles vs. the differential action of two wheels on each axle turning at different speeds relative to the axles.

The heft would be beneficial, but that can be accomplished by swapping out the early hollow MPC wheelsets with later MPC/Fundimensions or LTI/LLC solid wheelsets.

Adjusting the tension of the wipers on the axles would be much easier and more effective.

I'm considering the effect of freely rotating wheels on stationary axles versus the bearing friction (Delrin sideframes notwithstanding) from solid axles, myself.  If the wheels need a drop of oil now and again, well, that's part of the game. 

And how is differental action from locked axles BENEFICIAL?  Isn't that why they put differentials on motorcars in the first place? 

Though I will admit adjusting wiper tension will certes be CHEAPER. 

Mitch

Noted!  Thanks! 

Mitch

Mitch, the postwar axles will not be stationary with respect to the wheels. They too will rotate, albeit slower than the wheelsets. The less lubrication on the wheel/axle interface, the more the axles will turn also.

Larry

Because the wheels are fixed to the axle, the benefit is mostly on curved track.

The wheelsets can drift to a point where one wheel diameter point touching the rail is slightly larger than the opposite wheel diameter point touching the rail. This reduces friction because the outside rail is larger in circumference, or longer, than the inside rail, especially with sharp 031 or 027 curves.  If you look closely, you can see the cars lean into the curves as the outside wheels drift to a larger diameter.

On straight track, it helps with tracking straight and avoids wandering from side-to-side, just as on prototype 1:1 railroads, which also use tapered tread surfaces on rolling stock to keep the flanges away from the rails(although not as steep of an angle) and the wheels are locked to the axles.