Thrall Auto Carrier


R

Ronzzr11

Member
I bought a Walthers Thrall Auto Carrier last month, as soon as I ran it on my layout, I had clearance problems,with height, and trackside obstacles, I,ve managed to fix these. However I was wondering, are these the best cars to find clearance faults, or are there other cars that cause more problems ?
Ron
 
Even the real railroads have clearance issues with Autoracks:

99a25574.jpg
 
Wow I can't believe the proto missed that?

I'm wondering if you have rolling problems with the Walthers trucks/wheels?

I recently got 14 Walthers Bi-Level Autoracks and almost ALL of them wouldn't even roll correctly. So I had to replace all the wheels with all metal wheelsets. And I paid $28/ea. for those things. ($40/ea. on Walthers site).

Really disappointing with the cost of them, and they put crappy wheels on them. Absolutely no quality control. (Thanks China). :mad::mad::mad:
 
Motley said:
Wow I can't believe the proto missed that?

I'm wondering if you have rolling problems with the Walthers trucks/wheels?

I recently got 14 Walthers Bi-Level Autoracks and almost ALL of them wouldn't even roll correctly. So I had to replace all the wheels with all metal wheelsets. And I paid $28/ea. for those things. ($40/ea. on Walthers site).

Really disappointing with the cost of them, and they put crappy wheels on them. Absolutely no quality control. (Thanks China). :mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...
If they had plastic wheels, then you don't have the version that costs $40 on Walthers' website, you've got an older run, around $25 new.
 
jbaakko said:
If they had plastic wheels, then you don't have the version that costs $40 on Walthers' website, you've got an older run, around $25 new.
Click to expand...

No, they are indeed the new version just released Bi-Level. They have metal wheels and plastic axles. I have a couple of the old one's that are the Tri-level and they roll perfectly fine.
 
All new Walthers rolling stock comes with Proto 2000 wheels. I dislike them because the quality control is spotty. The axles aren't always straight and the plastic axle points don't roll very well. I almost always replace the Proto 2000 wheels with Intermountains, but some of the Walthers trucks need NEM length axles because the Intermountains can be too long for them (Intermountains will work pretty much everywhere else except for some Athearns and the Bachmann Silver series)

Atlas used plastic axles but machined the needlepoints onto the wheels themselves so they have metal axle points. Now, on all new rolling stock, Atlas uses metal axles and metal wheels with metal axle points.

Intermountain has always used metal wheels on a metal axle when they switched to metal. They are also the least expensive and most readily available wheels of this type.

Athearn used to use metal wheels on plastic axles with plastic axle points but they did a good job with the trucks so that the wheels turned smoothly. Some runs have narrower trucks with NEM (European/shorter) axle lengths. Now, all new rolling stock come with metal wheels on metal axles with metal axle points.

Walthers started using metal wheels after they took over Proto 2000. Since then, they have been using the Proto 2000 wheels on all rolling stock. The wheels are a quality control nightmare and the rolling qualities are horrible. Add that to the fact that the Walthers cars are underweight (to save money on shipping) and you will have a nightmare full of derailments.

Bachmann Silver Series rolling stock (with the exception of the Amfleets) use metal wheels on a metal axle with metal axle points. However, the wheels have an NEM (European/Shorter) axle so it's nearly impossible to swap the wheels out. In the initial runs (not even sure if they fixed it), they put 33" wheels in ALL of their cars whether they needed them or not. This meant that some cars such as hoppers were tooled to have 36" wheels like the prototype, but were given 33" wheels which made the coupler height too low. Luckily, I have a bunch of Reboxx 36" NEM wheels (I bought a pack to swap out the wheels on the pilot trucks of my Mehano GG1) which fit perfectly, but is an expensive alternative. The trucks on the Bachmann cars have a unique mount to them so swapping them out is not easy. All of the cars are underweight and some cars can't be opened to add weight to them.

I have ONE Walthers auto rack. It is a tri-level. Instead of retooling it to look better, they still molded everything on and then just jacked up the price. The car is slightly underweight, but since I swapped the Proto wheels for Intermountain 28" semi-scale wheels, it rolls better and is slightly more tolerant of the fact that the car is underweight.

The ONLY thing that Walthers did half right was with the Front Runners. The wheels are the same Proto wheels but have metal axle points (NEM length). I tried to replace the wheels with Intermountains, but the axles were shorter than the Intermountain but had metal axle points so I left them as is. The only problem with the car is that it is underweight. I added weight to the trailer (always add the weight to the floor! The weight in the trailer raises the center of gravity and can actually derail your car if you're not careful!)
 
Yes I agree, the Walthers wheelsets are complete crap. I just can't believe at that price I paid, how they can get away with this.

The new Bi-Level Autorack is actually a really nicely detailed car. And the weights are correct. They are way heavier than the older Tri-level.

But ya, once I replaced all the wheelsets with the all metal Reboxx 33" , 1.025"
Now they roll respectable well.
 
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