Hello. I need somebody to help me decide what are my choices of hi rail trucks that will work with my PFE InterMountain Railway Company cars. They come equipped with kadee couplers and will not work with the rest of my cars (4 total). Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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Intermountain equipped their 3 rail cars with Weaver trucks. Weavers at least their die cast trucks are hard to come by. If you can get by without diecast they should be plentiful. If you can do with the plastic trucks but are in need of die cast couplers. Hit my e mail. I should have some. I convert everything to Kadee's. Lionel is releasing cars from Weaver molds. They said the trucks would be available separately. That may be your best bet.
You have a couple choices.
Weaver trucks are the usual standard for Intermountain cars.
Lionel's new trucks may also be an option.
Scale City is now offering non-operating body mounted couplers for hi-rail, which would allow you to keep the trucks that are on the car now. If your car has scale wheels this could be a problem depending on your track, though.
I've got multiple sets of Weaver hi-rail plastic trucks if you can't find a better alternative. Some people have problems with the plastic trucks, although I never have.
Many trucks can be adapted; K-line offered a version of the Intermountain reefer (I have 2), but rode far too high due to the high-bolster die-cast trucks they used. No problem - I ground the plastic car bolsters underneath off with a Moto-Tool and they now sit nice and realistically low. The car bolsters could not be seen from the side, anyway.
My point is: don't be afraid to modify the car or truck mount to make yourself happy. The Weaver trucks are a good solution - die-cast or plastic - and will probably make the car sit a bit too high, but not in a high-pockets way. The Weaver plastic trucks are great, but the plastic Weaver couplers work poorly (as in open/close) and I treat them like dummies. They stay shut, but don't play well with others. Weaver's die-cast are better.
Look on eBay for trucks; the modern production die-cast (low-bolster) Lionel, MTH and Atlas 3-rail trucks are all nice.
You can adapt any truck to the InterMountain car. I bought a bunch of their kits and altered the truck bolsters to fit the trucks I had. Each different truck type will be slightly different. This is a AHM reefer but a sample of how I modify them to run great at the cost of some details.
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