I ordered these a while back after seeing this scheme on some videos. The car is not entirely accurate but it's a good representation with what looks like a correct paint scheme. Build date of 1939 so it fits with the era I'm modeling. Usual great service from Charles Ro on delivery.
I don't purchase a lot of MTH rolling stock. Hate dealing with those trucks. I had a few sets ready to go with the 3 rail coupler removed. Painted and weathered. Figured I just pop off the shell. Replace the trucks and add Kadee's. The car must be taken apart carefully. The door guides must be unscrewed in 4 spots and then some tabs must be prayed out from the body. They do come out. You just need to work slowly. First of these cars aren't equipped for Kadee's. I didn't read the product feature part that well. Not a big deal. Just a matter of drilling a few holes. After getting the Kadee's mounted they would require a huge shim. The longest 2 56 I have is 1/2 inch. I didn't think it would work. The car didn't seem to ride that high to look at it. Beside an Atlas car you could see the difference in floor height.
I started studying the chassis. I have a method for lowering their flatcars. It involves using Weaver trucks. Not to easy to come by now and I have plenty of MTH trucks that look good and roll really well. I read this on the Forum a while back. The trick was to flip the chassis to lower the car. Not sure which model was being done. The underbody details could be removed and mounted on the other side. That would flip the truck mount. Instead of protruding down. It would be recessed. Now I needed a way to mount the truck. I searched my box of hardware and came up with this. The screws I think are from the centering spring for the coupler on the GGD Pullmans. The spring is from an Atlas coupler. 3RS guys should have plenty of these. I noted that many brass manufactures mount their trucks using a spring to tension the truck. Below is a pic of the hardware and how it mounts to the truck.
The chassis rests between the to bonded washers. The lower bonded washer with the metal side facing the chassis. It sort of centers itself and keeps the truck centered. This is what it looks like when complete. The truck mount screws are just tightened up tight. The spring lets the truck pivot freely with just the right amount of tension. You can see even with the lowered ride height. The amount of distance between the chassis and the coupler box.
You must file a couple of notches in the chassis so that it sits flush in the body. To shim the coupler I used a MTH mounting shim and one from Micromark. The chassis tracks very well. You will also need to file a notch in the body for the coupler box. About 1/8 of an inch. The car now rides at the same floor height as an Atlas. Below are a couple of shots. A few with it's sister car and one in a consist.
This is a nicely detailed car. Very well made. I like my boxcars Brown. I also like some variety. This car fits nicely into my early 40's era theme. All it needs now is some light weathering.
