Identifying truck type?

[Hammerli]

I bought a couple of Athearn cars that I'd like to change to metal couplers and trucks. I found Kadee's conversion chart for couplers, is there a visual reference chart for trucks as well? One is a 40' derrick flat car, which it looks to me like the Bettendorf truck fom the Walthers reference book. The other is a Walthers Dynamometer car. Kadee's website has fairly small photos that make it difficult to match type.

 

[sumpter250]

The 40' derrick flat had bettendorf trucks. I have no reference for the dynamometer car.
Pete

 

[cidchase]

http://www.kadee.com/htmbord/page27.htm
and
http://www.micro-trains.com/trucks_main.htm

might help a little bit. I have to admit, many of them look
very similar to me. ops: Other than the old Arch-bar trucks, you
have to know what you're looking for

 

[pjb]

Take a look at Bethlehem Car Works website Kit Bits section.
It is the usual prefices then, bethlehemcarworks dot com , and shows
the Red Ball trucks (30 or so) formerly made by Cape Line.
They will help you.
Good-Luck, PJB

 

[doctorwayne]

You should also keep in mind the fact that railroads would often update older cars with more modern trucks, or that the modeller can also backdate a car with the application of an older-style truck. Mainline Modeler, in the November and December 1993 issues, ran a series, with photos, on the various freight car trucks available. There are quite a few more than you might think, and of course, there are even more that have become available recently. Depending on the era that you're modelling, that derrick car could have arch bars (even at a time when arch bars were no longer in interchange use, since these cars seldom,if ever, went offline), Andrews, any of the many versions of "Bettendorf", or roller bearing.

Wayne

 

[ross31r]

There was also a series of articles in Model railroader recently about both passenger and freight trsucks - not sure when it was though.