My tank car arrive yesterday, and it looks great. On the next run, lets stick to something more colorful like black. http://www.railcarphotos.com/PhotoDetails.php?PhotoID=55896
Got my four cars. The vinegar is correct: http://www.labelmaster.com/store/scripts/view-product.cfm?product=ZT4-2789
I received my tank cars via Loren this weekend at the GTE show in Portland. I ran two of the cars but the wheels seemed to drag on the third. I hope to post some pictures and videos in the near future.
I talked with AZL about the concern. These are the same trucks that have been used on the ACF 3-Bays and 4-Bays without any problems. AZL is thinking that the packaging may be the culprit. As anyone who has received these cars has discovered, the packaging is very rigid and prevents the cars from moving at all. This was done by design since the cars have quite a lot of metal work that can be damaged if the cars were to move around in shipping. We think that the packaging may be putting pressure on the trucks. This is causing them to clamp slightly on the axles. AZL found that simply running the cars will cause any stiffness to disappear. Rob
Rob, your deduction to the clues are wrong. I had the same though, and wonder why they dont roll when they are the same wheels. Well, they are not the same wheels. At least on my car. There is a defect in manufacturing of the wheels, but they only effect the wheels next to the coupler. There is small amount of plastic pertruding where the axle join with the wheel, and this what is causing the friction. Its rubbing against the coupler box. The easy solution is to get one of the wheels from the Centerflows to replace the ones near the coupler, and place the defective wheel on the Centerflow on the axle opposite of the coupler.
John good deduction. I can see what you are talking about. It makes sense why some cars are okay and others are not. I am going to pass this information on to AZL. These are the new profile wheels which are different from the ACFs. Out of curiosity, did you try filing the black wheel insulator down? Or the coupler housing? I am wondering if a couple quick swipes of a file is all that is needed. I am going to test this out if I can find one in my samples. Rob
Another quality control issue? First, the auto-racks... now, these? I have an order on the way to me now with a 3-bay and 4-bay hopper and a tank car. Hopefully... my three different pieces will not have suffered. But... I'm really getting tired of reading of problems from other buyers BEFORE someone from AZL 'mentions' any thing.
I checked my four car set. All of them roll fine. Not as good as the MTL trucks with the FVM steel wheels. Those are amazing how easy they roll!
Built up the TrainCat Tank Car Loading Platform. Instructions and details when I worked with Bob Knight on this a year ago were 1" centers. Included document says 1.337" (*** All Z scale dimensions 1.0") So I laid my track at 1" CTC. You guessed, they need to be out at 1.375" CTC. Off to the laser I go to cut new shorter swing platforms. But they look good. (have not added the fill tubes, etc.) Just what I wanted for Christmas. Need to add 2 more (they stack in-line without the ladder in between) and second row on the front track. .
