Coming in late... A little bit of background on why HO scale trucks have 1/8" holes in their bolsters: In the beginning... models had wood floors and wood screws were used to hold the trucks on. This

Except that in general, these hat section rib ends were added to brand NEW cars, not rebuilds. While some roads like the NYC began massive car rebuilding programs as early as 1911, the real push to

Hi Hudson - the link you sent went to the microfasteners webpage, but not to any specific product. Can you point us to the item you were flagging? Rob

I am a fan of those washers too. They are very thin, so not much impact on car/coupler height, but they do provide a (at least a chance to achieve a) 3 point suspension. This afternoon i sliced

As always you have to hope the sellers title their listings consistently to make any search useful. my 2 cents. Curt Fortenberry

https://www.microfasteners.com/

There was a great deal of work done to reinforce the more modern all wood cars in the WWI period, because of the rapid increase in train weights and consequent train dynamics; the cars were too new to

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Proto:87 stores' washers. I've used them and they do seem better than the "one screw tight one looser" method. (Admittedly not answering Rob's direct question, but

There weren't a whole lot of these types of strap ends made, Eric. And the few hundred that were made were generally isolated on deep south roads like the attached. By the time someone had a bright

There are auction houses who handle brass collections, including Sotheby's. And Frank Peacock's model collection was recently auctioned off. The difference with auction houses is

Thanks everyone. I do not have a stash of Kadee No5 boxes to scavenge from, so i’ll pick up some 1/8” evergreen tube and go with that idea. Appreciate all the suggestions. it was reassuring to

The filing is to smooth and polish the screw head, not reduce its size. 4-40 machine screws fit Tahoe trucks perfectly with no slop. Plus they are available at most big box and local hardware

That’s an interesting brake step as well. Interesting to try to spot those cars; I’m not able to add to your list. Rob

I suspect these pressed metal parts are part of the technological progress after the end truss rods that held the cars together. Ray Breyer authored a review of these truss rod end cars. The PDF can

Why not use 2-56 and forget the filing. Nelson Moyer

Tichy KC and AB brake sprues have two plastic washers that work well on resin cars with a flat kingpin. Kadee fiber washers come in two thicknesses coded red and gray. You can also use metal

One other useful method that I have not seen mentioned yet is Evergreen plastic tubing, the O.D. being the desired size to fit inside a freight car truck. Drill a hole of this dimension vertically

On freight cars with a flat bolster area, such as those on nearly all resin freight car kits, I cut off part of a Kadee #5 coupler box as a sleeve. This acts as a stop for the screw and a pivot for

I just recalled that one of the plastic parts sprues in Bowser kits has four (I think) of these 'tube washers'. They also work, as I have used them in assembling many Bowser kits. Todd Sullivan

Bob, I used to agree with you. But then my eyesight is getting worse, my coordination has gone away and neuropathy has kicked in. Any help rerailing cars is ok with me. Of course if I didnt derail