On Mon, Jan 18, 2021 at 10:08 PM, Dave Parker wrote:

Ya know, as soon as I sent that, I knew it wasn't quite right.  The Accurail has the longer wheelbase, and I think the larger spring box, but I don't believe the truss members are as heavy-duty as on the 70-t Andrews.

Dave is correct, the Accurail Andrews truck is the 70 ton version, as our basic truck mold has the scale 5'-8" axle spacing. I just looked through our files this morning but couldn't find any reference to what I used for reference material. It's been twenty one years, I recall whatever it was it was published in one of the CBC's, as there was not much primary material available back then.

What are you comparing the Accurail truck to? It is possible the other model truck is too bulky :-)

Visual size comparison can be a fool's errand, because there was very little dimensional difference between the trucks, other than wheelbase. In the 1922 CBC I'm finding 50 ton trucks with a lower diagonal both 2-5/8" and 2-3/4" wide, and 70 ton trucks with the same 2-3/4" dimension. The difference in the width of the journal boxes is only 1"... that's .011" in HO scale. Any of the model trucks that have more robust looking journals likely have those parts larger than scale, since the NMRA standards make it impossible to accommodate the axle cone and keep the truck anywhere near scale width.

By the way, to get back on topic, nowhere have I found a drawing of a 100 ton capacity Andrews truck. Back in those days 100 ton capacity trucks were all specials, and there were some really outlandish designs.

Dennis Storzek