Weaver Troop Cars,who has warping problems?

Sorry to bump this old thread but I just got back into running trains again after spending the last several years focusing on young children and found one of these ex-troop cars painted for N&W that had the warped floor.  Thanks to the power of the Internet this thread got me taking the floor off last night to keep the shell from cracking.

I was able to save all the under car detail without breaking it.

Has anyone made a new floor for their cars?  I was thinking that a piece of Aluminum cut to the size of the shell opening might work.

I had the exact same issue with the exact same N&W REA troop car. I just made a new bottom with sheet and strip styrene, painted it, and then reapplied all the detail parts. Worked great for me.

Thanks, That may be the easiest option but will make the car much lighter. 

I may run a square tube down the middle to allow the trucks to screw through something thicker and add rigidity to the floor.

OK.  An associate and I had prepared a mold for making a cast resin replacement part for the warped floor.  Based on her reconstruction of one of her own troop cars using our cast resin parts, it would've been a dandy solution.  But the floor would not have been made of metal, of course, which ends up really only being a car weight issue, not a structural one based on the overall Weaver design.  Additional distributed weight could easily be located within the car to compensate.

But since then, after talks with the new owners of the troop car tooling...Atlas..., we've determined that it is their intent to offer replacement floors in some manner (they have no financial obligation of their own, mind you, to correct a Weaver-vintage product).  Since they have announced a new run of the cars under their own name, I would be patient and optimistic that a solution is forthcoming.  If nothing else, the April York meet will probably provide some answers.  OTOH, did anyone collar Atlas folks about this at the Big E show just this past weekend??

So, should Atlas NOT come through, we have the mold and a rather simple solution.  Let's see what they will do, though.

KD

I'd like to pull the trigger on four or five of the new Atlas cars. However, I've had an alarming number of crumbling trucks from their freight cars, so I'm concerned about these new releases. In addition, their response to me on the trucks has been less than acceptable and I don't want to see the same if these cars go south. Anybody else feel the same?

NYC Z-MAN posted:

 I've had an alarming number of crumbling trucks from their freight cars, so I'm concerned about these new releases.

Now THAT's something new to me....never experienced it among all of my own Atlas cars!  But it's also a serious concern, because....

In addition to having the floor-warpage issue resolved, the availability of separate-sale Allied Full Cushion trucks, as Weaver so accurately/beautifully provided on these cars, is of strong personal interest re some pet projects requiring the same.  So, in the same discussion with our Atlas friends, they were quite optimistic that Atlas would, indeed, offer these special die cast trucks/couplers for separate sale....eventually.  A lingering metallurgical problem with the trucks would be a real bummer!!

More discussion fodder for York!

TexasEd posted:

Thanks, That may be the easiest option but will make the car much lighter. 

I may run a square tube down the middle to allow the trucks to screw through something thicker and add rigidity to the floor.

Was the spine of your car warped as well? In my case the spine was still fairly strait so I was able to just remove it from the warped car floor and reattach it to the new styrene car floor. Retaining the spine, if possible helped maintain a fairly good car weight, so I didn't add any addition ballast.

Lyle A posted:

TexasEd posted:

Thanks, That may be the easiest option but will make the car much lighter. 

I may run a square tube down the middle to allow the trucks to screw through something thicker and add rigidity to the floor.

Was the spine of your car warped as well? In my case the spine was still fairly strait so I was able to just remove it from the warped car floor and reattach it to the new styrene car floor. Retaining the spine, if possible helped maintain a fairly good car weight, so I didn't add any addition ballast.

My spine was fine.  I detached everything from the bottom of the car without problems.  Now that you mention it the spine is where the trucks attach, not to the floor.  The spine does attach to the floor though so I'll still be stiffening up the floor somehow.

TEXASED,

Did you see the Pennsy express car I repaired on page 4 of this thread?  I used evergreen plastic to replace the frame on my Pennsy express car. This repair worded fine for me.

Hopefully Atlas will make the replacement frame available soon. I have exchanged emails with Bill at Atlas. They are well into the planning for production of the troop sleeper cars and replacement frames will  be available. He indicated that the center sill which includes the truck bolsters and much of the under frame detail will not be included with the replacement frames. This did not make much sense to me.  His explanation was not clear, so keep you center sills on hand. We may have to splice our broken center sills back together  and re use them.

Thanks,

Richard 

jd-train posted:

I took a much closer look at my four cars (3 sleepers and 1 kitchen) this afternoon.

There is no damage to any of the shells and all cars sit flat on the track.

Just to make sure that there was not any warping to the frames, I dissembled the shells from all the frames:

• sleeper 7020 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
• sleeper 7679 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
• sleeper 7276 - no damage and frame appears to be straight.
• kitchen car 162 - no damage and frame appeared to be straight.  However, when I went to screw the shell back on to the frame, I noticed it rocked 3/16" from one end to the other!  I guess that unscrewing the shell from the frame allowed the frame to release its energy and bend.

My suggestion would be that if anyone has troop cars that look to be in perfect shape, to go ahead and take off the shells anyway, just to be sure.  Better to know now if the frames are warped before they damage the shells.

 

Maybe if we post the number of our cars and if there is any warping to the frames, we could find any commonality in the problem.

 

These are beautifully done cars and I forgot how detailed they were until I took another look at them this afternoon.  I am sorry to see and hear the severe issues that some of y'all have had.  I am grateful for this thread as it has saved the shell on my kitchen car.

 

Jim

Update on my 4 troop cars, as more than two years have passed, and I took a look at them again as I packed up my trains and took down the layout recently.  Glad to report that there are no changes to my cars!  The three sleepers still look straight and the kitchen car hasn't gotten any worse.

Even so, I took out all of the screws from all the shells and frames as I packed up the cars.

Hope other folks have found no additional damage to their cars as well.

Jim

That is exactly what I did, but I used a MOW car and after I finished I noticed It was only the floor that was warped not the separate center beam. I mate a new floor from Evergreen Styrene, attached the center beam and added the detail parts and now I have a functional MOW car and a repaired Troop Sleeper.

Atlas O is making the former Weaver Troop sleeper. Maybe they will offer a replacement floor.