Has anyone tried the Foothill Model Works extended knuckle on the Forney rear (or front) coupler FMW 4008 or 4009 to overcome the problem of uncoupling over uneven track?  My 15 year old "temporary" layout with EZ track has a couple humps in it where the rear coupler up and down swing that is exaggerated by the length of the Forney causes it to uncouple.  I can't run it backwards because it derails on the EZ track switches, pluse there is no reverse headlight.   (I have tried putting extra screws to push down the high spots, but then it pops up somewhere else a few months later.  To save weight on a portable temporary layout, it is just homasote, and it is slowly shrinking while the EZ track is not.)

I don't have a problem withcars being pushed off on curves, its just that the coupler lifts right out of the mating car over a couple humps, so it seems like this would be a simple solution.  I am not intersted in cutting it up into a separate tender loco as I am trying to keep the SR&RL look.  If anyone has tried it, did it work and was the 4008 enough or did you use the 4009? 

In replacing the trucks with the replacements for new geasrs on a shay that had not been run yet I find that one of the slip joint between the crankshaft and trucks binds severely.   The replacement gear kit included an extra slip joint sleeve with u joint half, the mating piece of the u-joint that presses on the crankshaft, and the ring that holds the u-joint together.

How do you assemble the joint, do you just squeeze the two ends together enough to fit into the ring and pop back to shape in the holes?  Also, is there any way to disassemble it without just snipping off the ring?  I would rather just replace the sleeve part, and not try to pull off  / press on the part that goes on the crankshaft.

Thanks

Glad to see the progress on the Shay and Climax gear problem, Bachmann, I am more willing to run mine now that I know there is a fix. 

As far as I can see that only leaves the railtruck owners out of luck for split gears, and that is the only one of the three that I have actually had fail.  Last we saw on this forum, the only resolution offered would be a swap for a railbus which doesn't help if you want the railtruck...

Any plans to get behind this one, or is there an aftermarket set anyone knows of?

Just got my first WBB loco, BL-2, after a lot of Bachmann On30.  Happy with the detail and features for the money.  Two minor detaiils I would like to address however.

1.  Paint is great except too shiny - is the paint compatible with Testors dullcoat or is there another suggestion?

2.  Marker lights are great on a loco of this price range, but - all four are red.  Does  anyone know a source for similar sized marker lenses that are green?

Just did the series wiring change, hopefully the horn will work at less than 100 scale mph now.  I may install an MCR sound unit and it also requires a fair minumum voltage.

Have been having problems with bowed underframes of the new low frame type caused by the trussrods being too tight.  It makes the ends of the underframe and coupler pocket droop down and leave a gap to the body.

I have found this on the replacement underframes and some but not all of the cars that come with the lower frame.

My fix so far is to put a piece of sheetmetal between the truss rods and the underframe as a heat shield, and then heat them with a heat gun to soften them.  They are stretched by putting the heat shield between them and the frame.  Of 5 I did, on two of them I overdid it and melted them - it is touchy.  For those I cut off ones from underframes I was replacing.

Any better ideas, and has anyone found replacement frames without this problem?  The older cars and some of the new ones like the pulpwood car have a softer material that stretches and does not cause this problem.

Now that we will have our caboose to go with the Forney and pulp cars, what about releasing the other basic freight cars with SR&RL including the low frame arch bar?  I do plan to do at least one unlettered car but by the time I buy decals, arch bar trucks, maybe underframes and couplers (and scrounge the right length screws) if the unlettered cars are too old, it would be more than it would be worth.  (Plus  my decals never look as good as Bachmann lettering.)

While there is no lower passenger truck yet, I would also like to see the green passenger cars with Sandy River and Rangely Lakes - I am ok with the representative caboose and fairly generic freight cars, so it is only a little more stretch to the passenger cars...just don't look in the windows

(I like the new caboose, the real SR&RL ones were all a little different and the Bachmann window counts on either side of door do have examples ... just not on the same car!   "Selective compression" the O 3 railers call it when something is shortened but not reduced in overall scale to maintain a "look",  making it more practical for tight curves and small layouts.)

I have a few of the pulpwood cars which have the "low frame arch bar" truck and the new underframe with nearly flat bolster.  This truck needs a small black spacer to work on the pulpwood, and would need this to be put with the replacement lower frame or some of the later cars that come with the lowered frame.  They also need a longer machine screw to go with the spacer I think.

These trucks purchased separately come with generic "wood" screws to use on a scratchbuilt, but please make available the spacer and longer screws to fit the new frame.  They could be packaged with the trucks along with the generic screws, since they would only be used with them. 

What is the prototype for these trucks?  I think I first saw them on the logging cars, they look good on the two foot style pulpwood (other than the extra width) but they are significantly higher and longer than the Grandt Line SR&RL trucks. 

Thanks

Now that we have our Forneys and some pulpwood cars, does Bachmann plan to release any of the existing freight and pass cars with SR&RL lettering? 

Also, does any one know of a source for SR&RL decals or transfers so that we can re-letter some existing cars?  It seems like the SR&RL freight cars usually just had the initials which we could do with generic dry transfers, but it would be nice to find a set for the passenger cars with Sandy River & Rangely Lakes written out and a herald.  I tried some of the obvious on-line sources with no luck.

I would like to revisit the changes in the Bachmann car heights, couplers, trucks - I had seen references previously to new lowered cars accomodating center shank couplers, either indicating that the old cars had been re-issued with new trucks with the reduced bolster spacer boss on the original trucks, or that the new cars had different frames to accomplish the lowering.  I had not bought or seen the lowered cars and there seemed to be some confusion over how one would know which a new purchase would be.

Recently I bought a few pulpwood cars to go with the Forney and found both changed coupler box and bolster detail, and a new low archbar truck.  I do like the new look, although something targetting a 2' foot prototype seemed to be the wrong place to introduce what appear to be 3' sideframes with spacers to allow the 31" wheels.  I know this would be easier to convert to On3, but this would seem to be a less attractive compromise for 2 foot gage, and it takes away some of the "hunkered down" look that has to do with how far the truck is tucked underneath, not just how low the car is. 

I tried swapping the trucks onto an older car, and there are some issues with bolster height and boss diameter / spacers - its not a straight swap.

My questions are two:

Are the new cars of other types now coming with the same modified frame and low truck as the Pulpwood, or are they just the old tooling with reduced truck bolster thickness?

There was a previous question as to whether we might be able to buy a replacement frame and trucks to convert cars to lower the cars, whether this woud match the Pulpwood car or not - any further news?