Model Forum / General / Railroads / November 2004

I agree. Those things look ideal for this purpose. I wish I had seen
them a while back.

All of my Atlas [HO scale] cars with the push pin design had a terrible
wobble on the rails: for me it was unappealing. Their 3-bay and 6-bay
cylindrical cars, their cabooses, their PS2 covered hoppers, and their
older, 2-bay, coal hoppers all wobbled - and quite a bit. To fix the
problem, I shaved off the plastic ridge on the under carriage of the car
that surrounded the push pin once you removed the pin and the truck
completely from the bottom of the car. I then placed a very thin, steel
washer over the opening, and I used a #2 x 1/4" screw in place of the
push pin. This make shift approach works perfectly on all of these
designs. The screw allows for perfect adjustment to how much or how
little wobble you care to have by simply tightening or loosening the
screw. The two washers have the added benefit of increasing the car
weight a litle bit [and in HO scale, that "little bit" is noticable when
you free roll the car with a hand push]. If the washer can be seen, a
dab of car body paint will easily disguise its presence.

Atlas certainly stretched the validity of r-t-r with all of those
offerings. However, the paint quality, the lettering, and the rolling
quality of their metals wheels is exquisite which is why I continued to
purchase more of their cars. They also accept Kadee couplers w/ minimal
effort.