As many of you may recall, I am a bit of a railroad truck nut. When I was building a kit, or modifying or detailing one, I always wanted to try my best to have the car ride on the correct truck as used by the prototype. My friendship with Pat Wider and the late Richard Hendrickson, both truck experts, caused that. Anyway, last night I dug into my considerable stash of freight car trucks. There are a lot of them that are unused, in their original packet. I'll never be able to use them all, so I thought I'd see if there is any interest from at least one of you who would like some of these at a considerable saving. Here is the first group, six freight car trucks, mixed varieties, all unused, mint, in their original packet. See the pic (I really do wish I was a better photographer!) (All items sold) Group 1: Three (3) pair of Kato #31-601, ASF A-3 Ride Control 70-ton, standard (aka "friction") bearing trucks ..... A-3's were the Frisco's favorite from the 1950's on. These are incredible rollers - Tinkertown (where all these were purchased) had a sign on them that claimed they would roll uphill! Metal wheels, nice ASF A-3 detail - you can see the wedges above the spring housing. Retail price each was $4.98. Higher today. Two (2) pair of Kato #31-602, Barber S-2 70-ton, roller bearing trucks ...... S-2's were also popular with the Frisco as an alternate. These are also good rollers, but have a unique feature - the truck comes with roller bearing caps that rotate with the wheel as the truck moves down the track, just like the prototype. Neat! Metal wheels, nice detail. Retail price for these was $5.98. One pair (all I have) of InterMountain Barber S-2 100-ton, roller bearing trucks. These are not quite as smooth as the Katos (nobody's are), but look good and have fine detail. They come with a pair of brake beams for each truck, with brake cylinder. Plastic wheels - suggest you replace them with metal. These have been around for a while - used on many of IRC's cars. Retail price was only $2.00. Higher today. There they are - six trucks, $15 + $12 + $2, for a retail total of $29. All new, mint, unused. Price to you is $15.00, plus shipping. That's only two and a half bucks each. Shipping via USPS First Class mail package, which will probably be around $4.50. I'll cover anything over that. Payment via PayPal, use the "Friends & Family" option to avoid PP's service fee. Please let me know if there are any questions, and let me know if you are interested in more trucks. Ken ps: I talked with PayPal today (not easy to do!). I asked if the "Wulfert Consulting Limited" registration of my PP account was an issue sometimes blocking the "Friends & Family" no-fee option. The answer was "no, the name of the PP account has no bearing" on friends or family.
Don - What's offered is the collection of six truck items. I doubt you will have a need for the three roller bearing trucks! Was the ASF A-3 truck even available in 1943? I'm not sure. Will look it up. K
Here is what the late Richard Hendrickson essentially said about the introduction of the "new" designs of standard, "friction" bearing trucks from the two leading design suppliers: ASF and Barber, o During the 30's and '40's, a number of features which enhanced the performance of the basic AAR design found that the spring planks could be eliminated, and that various other methods of controlling excessive movement and oscillation were approved. This resulted in the development of the stabilized Barber S-2 from Standard Truck Co., and the A-3 Ride Control truck designed by ASF. o In the late '40's and early '50's it was the ASF A-3 Ride Control truck that won the most following - at one point over half of the new cars being delivered to the railroads then were riding on ASF A-3's. K
So what is the verdict? I'd split the roller bearing trucks if someone else wanted them. Otherwise, just sell them to someone as a lot. I'm OK on trucks anyway.
I'm very happy the first group (railroad trucks) sold so quickly. I'll keep posting groups of items, such as the six pair of trucks above, to move groups of common items I no longer can use off to frisco.org folks who can use them, at bargain prices. Sounds like a winning arrangement. Here is the second group, railroad related buildings, HO scale. (All items sold) Group 2: First, a Magnuson Models "Practice Kit Store", an item long out of stock,# M537, a two story store front building that was marketed as a way to introduce modelers to the kits Magnuson planned to market. This one is rare. New, unbuilt, in the original bag, with all instructions. A small town, two story store or other commercial building. Nice detail. Kit includes chimney and clear sheet for the windows. Make what you want out of it. Retail price, long ago, was $9.95. See pic. Second, a very popular Magnuson kit, now out of stock, item #804, "Leviathan Mfg Company, Inc". This is a small single story building that could be made into any kind of commercial structure. New, unbuilt, in the original bag, with all instructions. A small town, one story structure that could be any kind of building. Nice detail, styrene material. Make what you want out of it. Retail price was, I think, $9.95. See pic. Third, a building that reminds me very much of the types of building seen in Newburg, MO, on the Eastern Division. Newburg is my favorite spot on the Frisco. This is Pikestuff Service Garage/Machine Shop model #0009. Again, new, unbuilt, in the original box, with instruction sheet. These types of structures were seen all over Frisco country - that's why I bought it. Nice detail. Plastic. Retail price was $14.95. See pic. There they are, three building kits: $10 + $10 + $15, for a retail total of $35. I want to be real aggressive on these, as I will never use them, having no layout at all. Price to you is $15.00. That is well less than half of the retail prices from years ago. Shipping should be less than $5, via USPS First Class package, depending on total weight, which will be less than 13 oz I hope. I'll cover shipping cost over $5.00. Payment by PayPal to meteor910@mindspring.com. Please specify the "friends & family" option to avoid their fee, which seem to have been recently increased. Let me know if you have questions. These will make into nice buildings. (All items sold) Ken
FYI, I am going to take a break on posting items for sale on frisco.org and on eBay. We are going up to return to the arctic tundra to be with our son, daughter in law and three beautiful granddaughters over the holidays. Lots of stuff left - including locomotives, brass cabooses and a brass freight car, other stuff, decals, etc. We'll get into those in early 2020. Caroline and I wish all of frisco.org best wishes for their holiday and for the coming new year. K
