Maine Central, Lamoille Valley

Maine Central, Lamoille Valley
Click image to link to my web site, nekrailroad.com

Monday, May 02, 2016

What's Up with Intermountain Trucks?

I can't imagine I'm the only one who has had this issue. I have some nice Intermountain cars that came ready-to-run. For some reason, and without any obvious cause, I have had a truck on more than one of these cars just fall apart. Looking closely I can see one of the truck side frames seems to have broken off from whatever helps hold the pin into the center section.

There does not appear to be any fix for this that I can figure out. Pressing the side frame back on does not hold it in place and gluing it is not really an option, and probably would cause tracking issues with half of the truck being rigid and the other half having some flexibility.

Anyone else have this issue and know what is going on?

A good truck still on the car, and this one where the side came of the center section. The pin on the side frame no longer holds the piece together.
I replaced the truck with another manufacturer.

Otherwise the trucks are great. Just until they disintegrate.

2 comments:

Adam Nelson said...

Mike,
Just had the same thing happen on a Green Bay & Western Intermountain "pinnacle" box car. I just gave up trying to it back together and bought a set of Accrual ACF 100 ton trucks. Too bad you cannot buy replacement trucks from Intermountain. More items for the parts bin I guess.
Awesome blog, and amazing railroad. No blog here, two small children and a plywood pacific Green Bay & Western railroad- centered around a paper mill in Whiting, Wi. Sites like yours are a great inspiration.

Adam Nelson said...

Mike,
Just had the same thing happen this week with an intermountain box car. I literally exploded when I pulled it out of the box. Ordered new trucks from Accurail.
Great railroad, great blog. It's a huge inspiration for me. I am currently working on a plywood pacific paper mill layout featuring the Green Bay and Western railroad in 1992 as it served a paper mill in Whiting, WI.