Metal wheels for new HO Rivarossi coaches?

[Otto Vondrak]

I want to get metal wheels for these cars:

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/635-6666

Will standard 33" Proto 2000 wheels work?

-otto-

[steemtrayn]

Reboxx has wheelsets in 33" and 36" diameters and the axles are made in different lengts to fit certain trucks. I think these cars have 36" wheels.

http://www.reboxx.com/wheelsets.htm

[Chuck Walsh]

Excellent recommendation.

[hoharold]

Hi guys, am I missing something here on the NYC cars? They list RP25 metal wheels in "new" trucks... Cars look very nice in foto... Does anyone have one in hand? I'm interested if they are assembled similar to the Budds and PS cars which are very easy to take apart for detailing.

[astrosa]

I don't actually have one of the new Rivarossi cars, but yes, as far as I know they include metal wheelsets already. It would be pretty surprising nowadays to offer a passenger car with plastic wheels, especially if they have a drop-in lighting kit available. I believe the trucks are the exact same ones used on the Walthers Budds, which roll very nicely straight out of the box - and by the way, almost all passenger cars use 36" wheels.

And yes, the new Rivarossi cars do come apart just like the Walthers ones. You can basically assume that they're exactly the same, since they were developed in partnership with Walthers, except that it's Rivarossi's tooling for the body shells. Personally I'm pretty disappointed that on the retooled cars, they still molded the window frames in that awkward overscale way, and the windows on the all-new 44-seat coach are actually too tall. But the cars are potentially useful...a friend of mine has rebuilt the new coach into several variations of Pullman sleepers by simply replacing the top half of the sides to change the window patterns.

[Chuck Walsh]

Excellent recommendation.

Reboxx also performs a roll test on the stock versus their recommended set.
If the comparison numbers are available you will see a noticeable increase
in free rolling.

[Otto Vondrak]

Thanks all for the recommendations.

-otot-

[Otto Vondrak]

Ok, so I picked up one of the coaches today at a local hobby shop... got the car home, checked it out some more. very nice... but... BUT!! there is NO TRAP under the vestibule door! I guess I can only board my trains from a high-level platform. It looks like the swing for the coupler is taking up some of the space, but I dont see why I cant mount steps there... oh man, I was really liking these cars up until about 20 minutes ago!

-otto-

did they think we wouldnt notice??

[astrosa]

Actually, if I were you I wouldn't suddenly start disliking the cars for that reason. Except for the windows being too tall like I mentioned, the Rivarossi coach is a pretty accurate model.

It's based on one of several types of 44-seat coaches built for UP by Pullman, ACF, and St. Louis. Their step traps folded up such that the visible edge blended right into the car's side sill. You should be able to see a ledge under the door about 6 scale inches up from the bottom of the side - that's the visible edge of the trap door, and below that is the folding trap itself.

Admittedly this looks a little weird compared to other Pullman and Budd cars, but it's correct. Here is a photo showing one of those cars (in Amtrak colors) with its door and trap open. If you wanted your cars to be able to serve low and high-level platforms, you could add the steps and then cut away the 6" or so of the side sill that represents the steps in the closed position.

[Otto Vondrak]

Thanks for the info- I guess I'm used to seeing cars with the steps always in place.

-otto-

[Chuck Walsh]

I see that MR reviewed these cars, April 2004
"The rigid plastic truck frames are molded in one piece(unlike the Budds)
They haveRP-25 contour metal wheels on stub axles pressed into acetal plastic(like the Budds) and their needle point axles make the cars very free rolling(unlike the my first Budds)".

[Otto Vondrak]

Turns out these cars are equipped with metal wheels... and the trucks look good and they seem to roll well as-is...

-otto-