OK, I know when I am beat. I give up! My box of new toys from FRT arrived, containing the pair of Athearn (former MDC) MD&W combination door box cars I need for my Wisconsin Central NTrakker. Last month, I traded the floors and the Dracumate trucks from my Athearn "improved MDC" Wisconsin Central Berwick pair, plus the boxes and nests to another TB member for 4 of the old-style MDC floors, so I could easily install the MT trucks and couplers I prefer for NTrak use. Quick and easy, once the parts arrived. Into MT boxes and nests they went. That left me 2 extra floors to convert these MD&W cars. A curse on Athearn! They are now super-gluing the floors into the plastic bodyshells! Why in the world would they do that? I've had MDC cars for years, and I can't remember ever having a floor come loose. Is it possible Athearn does not want the purchaser to swap floors? First they make it difficult to substitute MT trucks by adding that worthless post and tiny screw with useless coarse threads, and give us those awful paper boxes in place of the MDC jewel cases and nests that always worked fine for my purposes. They included Dracumate trucks I don't want and made it hard to substitute MT's. Now the floors are glued in so you about destroy the shell trying to get the floor out! After cracking one end and slightly distorting the sidesill on the first one, then seeing what they had done, I ran a sharp, new Xacto blade along the corners and ends of the floor to break the bond. That one still brought some of the inside of the shell with it, but the damage is not as severe. OK, Athearn - I'm done with you. I don't need your cars, your flimsy paper boxes, your Dracumates, your kingpin posts and tiny screws, nor do I need the aggrevation you caused me tonight. I've bought my last Athearn "anything." There are plenty of other sources for cars, including plenty of old stock MDC cars for half the price of an Athearn re-issue, or less!
Hmm, Reminds me of my Great Northern Eat Athern Picture was fortelling something. Good luck with that.
Bob, I have found that if you place a superglued item in the freezer until "frozen", you can then gently pry it apart. Superglue becomes VERY brittle when frozen....
Here is a closeup photo of the two underframes I removed: You can see where they were superglued in place. One other change on this release is foam pads between the trucks and bottom of the nest. I had wheels popped out of the sideframes on two of the four trucks. Not sure what the foam is there for.
WHO ELSE would glue bodies to frames, anyway? Uh, OK, I can think of a few others...seems like a bad idea to me too!
Try the freezer first and if they are still stuck try scribing a slight groove between the floor and cars side and then VERY CAREFULLY place drops of acetone in the groove. Don't get any on the outside of the car body as it will take the paint off.
LT---Your three point indictment of Athearn should be taken seriously by them. 1) Gluing the floors to the body shell---completely useless and insane! Why, as you say, would they do that? 2) Making it so the couplers are difficult to convert to micro-trains. In many cases, the accumates don't look right, and a change is essential. I hope what you describe isn't as troublesome as those horrible old Con-Cor's used to be---they were straight from the infernal regions, especially when the stock Con-Cor rapidos wouldn't even stay on the track. 3) Using cheap paper boxes---I've been especially concerned with the issue of boxes this past week. I've been making an equipment inventory, and have become extremely aware of how convenient it is when most manufacturers (e.g., MT and Atlas) sell their stuff in a nice, standard-sized jewel box. It is so great for orderly storage of your cars when you have this advantage. The plastic box that MDC used before, while (of course) superior to a paper box, still was way too big and obviously a)will not "store well" with the "standard" size box, and b)takes up too darned much space to begin with. It would be nice if Athearn would take notice of this. Along with the other two issues, at least as important.
LT: I agree with you 100%. Why would they glue the floors to the body shell. If you thinks today's bad, wait until tomorrow. Stay cool and run steam......
In manufacturing, when we need to cut cost to enable the stock holders to gain greater profit, (or lose our job), we are forced to use the cheaper paper box because it costs less, weighs less to ship, and provides an inexpensive media for advertising, which is what sells our product. In addition, we must "Design For Assembly" to cut additional costs. To do this, we must do away with using such worthless items as screws, and all extra items. Screws have to be ordered, freight has to be paid both ways, and storage, handling, insertion cost, inventory cost, and an operator's cost and insurance, plus all the paperwork of his taxes etc. is all eliminated by designing some other means of attachment. Why should we waste our money providing you with a good truck and coupler when we know you are happy to throw ours away, (and still pay the same price), or buy good ones from our subsidiary or even our competition? Thus, we come to "Design For Manufacturing". By re-designing the assembly for a more automated assembly, such as press-fit, ultrasonic welding, snap fit, and various gluing and bonding applications, we can now get rid of all of our skilled labor and hire younger cheaper labor. We who work in the Design Department get a bonus for every person we could design to terminate. The Company explained that this had the added advantage to industry by freeing up skilled labor that was badly needed in the fast-food business, so could be re-trained to assemble hamburgers, which again saved our company more money, saved us building space, and provided us more perfectly assembled hamburgers that looked more appealing, which would boost their sales. When "Out-Sourcing" came along, we had to re-design again to eliminate the last few employees by designing for automated assembly and packaging. We all knew the machinery cost less and the operating cost was less, but the production speed was far greater if we could fully automate, which of course reduces the per piece cost to just pennies. Instead of paying someone to insert an engine into a nest by hand (while making a visual quality control inspection), adding shipping damage protection foam, by hand, then adding and closing the lid to a Jewel Box by hand; we were able to keep our job by terminating someone who was trying to feed his family. (Hard hearted devils that we are, here in today's business world). We could sell the 1.2mil robotic insertion stations, and buy simple mechanical folding box insertion/closing machines for under four hundred thousand. Well, that's a no Brain'er! Plastics were the Saviour's of our Stock Holders. By eliminating all the metal, we saved shipping weight, and an injection molding machine can work 24-7-365 without a smoking, rest, or lunch break, and doesn't ever have PMS. It will be happy to make many assemblies all at one shot and spit them out in fractions of a minute while never expecting any bonus or pay raises, and of course does not get sued for sexual harassment, and no trees are killed or bird's nests are destroyed while running. High Volume ACC Application machines are far more accurate than mere people can ever be, and are cheaper to make and setup than Ultra-sonic Welders in most cases. We can in some cases be fully automated from raw plastic pellets to the shipping dock, which makes us the "Fair Haired Boy" of the Manufacturing and Marketing World, and the Stock Holders just love us ! Which allows our company to charge you a little more for all these "improvements" because after all, we have to pay higher gas prices for our Limos to haul us to work each day, and you fully understand all the "New and Improved" features, and that you are most anxious to buy the latest "Limited Run" products. Our Company has heard your cry, and for an additional cost, we have now given you this new "Premium Quality" paper bag with something or other in it. We are your friend, ain't that just Grand? By sending automation machinery to a potential enemy country, we were able to train an unskilled labor force out of school to "hit the kill switch" if anything happened to go wrong, or someone fell into one of the automatic box stuffers. ( It would have been embarrassing to have some kid open his Christmas present and find a very small compact foreign person looking back at him instead of the Little "N" scale Box Car he was expecting !
I think the clear jewel boxes simply have the advantage of letting you see inside and see what car you are holding,without having to open anything. I would agree about cardboard/paper boxes,they are useless.
Before MDC started sending their shake-the-box kits offshore for assembly, the same box and nest that securely held the parts also provided the same security for the finished car, and it stacked reasonably well with Atlas and MT boxes of the "small" size. I can't understand the trend to "large" boxes for small items. It looks like MDC may have decided to use the same box that fit the 50' open platform passenger cars for everthing, and only change the nest inserts. I think the same box is even used for their N Scale steam locomotives. My purchase of MDC freight cars went into a sharp decline about the time the large boxes came out and the prices increased. The paper boxes used by Athearn are misfits in my storage and transport systems. They aren't the same size as anything else I have to store and transport. Why is that important? Well I only buy these cars to populate the "long trains" I run on NTrak. Which means, they have to be transported to and from the trainpark every single time I run them. They also have to be stored off-site between runs. So it is very important to me. There are foam-lined storage and transport boxes available at additional cost . I've tried two brands, and I hate them. Most of the cars I own included jewel boxes I can use to store the cars in an orderly way, and transport them securely. I have 30 year old cars, and their 30 year old plastic boxes that are scratched up, but still function properly in terms of transport or storage. How long will paper boxes last in that service? A proper plastic box adds value to an item. A paper box reduces the value of the item for my purposes, and adds cost to replace it. In terms of prototypical accuracy and detail, a freight car only has to be "good enough for NTrak" for me to consider buying the car. The following are the deciding factors: 1) does the car come with MT T&C installed? 2) is it easy to convert the car to MT T&C? 3) is the car worth the trouble to convert? 4) does the packaging work for my storage and transport needs? 5) is the car worth the trouble and expense of providing my own transport and storage box and nest (available from MT as replacement parts at the LHS.) The Athearn cars I converted last night get: 1) No 2) No - difficult, with some damage possible 3) No 4) No 5) No Will I buy any more Athearn cars? "No"
In regards to fitting MT T&C's on the anthern cars I found a easy way. The screw was to small to hold the MT's, so I just put a MT washer that I had laying around on the screw and that held the trucks on with no problem. I will continue to buy the anthern cars because for the money I think they are some of the best cars out there. Kevin D Mumaw
Why? Standardization - Everything else has truck-mounted couplers, which enables me to couple cars on the somewhat sharp (12.5" radius) curves on the Unitrack layout at home, without having to line them up "by hand". Truck mounts work fine for me, so no need for the extra trouble or expense. I'm already putting a standard MT truck under the car unless it came with MTs from the factory. Body mounts and truck mounts typically don't mix well for switching and spotting cars, unless you do your coupling and uncoupling by hand. I prefer to use the MT magnetic system, including the delayed action method to spot cars beyond the ramp location. My most complex switching layout so far only required 5 magnetic ramps to serve the whole layout.
Well, it is your money and your railroad........ The washer method you mentioned worked on one of my cars - the SOO flat car, which had a larger, silver screw. The 2 SIECO box cars and the 4 re-issued MDC box cars all had a very small blackened screw. One of my SIECO cars arrived with one screw post cracked so it would no longer hold the screw. It is a fragile "solution" to a problem that did not exist. I run trains of 100+ cars and in 7 years of NTrakkin' I have never had a plastic MT kingpin fall out. Moot point - until Athearn decided to superglue the underframes in, retro-fitting the old MDC frame instantly solved the screw/post problem, click- out; click - in; done. While you may feel the re-issued cars are a good deal, I don't. I'm still buying the old MDC cars at a fraction of the Athearn price. Even after I buy MT trucks for them, I have saved several dollars, and I don't have that flimsy paper box to replace, either. That's how I choose to spend my hobby time and money.
