Walther's TTX Five-Unit Articulated Well Cars

Back in August, Walther's announced they were issuing limited runs of the Five-Unit Articulated Well Cars in the TTX old paint scheme:

and the newer scheme:


Within a month, their web page listed the item as sold out. I had ordered one of each from their web site, and was told they were "back ordered." Now, six months later, they've billed my credit card and supposedly, they're on their way to me.

It sure makes me wonder if they capitalized their production with our orders. Sure makes it easy to finance a production if your entire run is prepaid. Like the saying goes, what a way to run a railroad!

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Ed Harrison
Ed's Mental Cab Ride

 

I have these Five-Unit Articulated Well Cars and they look beautiful, but they really don't run very good. I have found them to be so heavy that except on the level on Atlas SD-60 has all it can do to keep them moving, and they don't go around most turns very good. If you have any turns that are even slightly tight forget it with this setup. If you have grades it is 2 locos just for the cars. They are beautiful though, and have a place right there in my yard.

In California they have been selling these for the past 3-4 months. I got mine while on vacation there in November.
Art

 

I found that mine did not roll well either when I got them, so I took a bunch of brown atlas wheels from my scrap box and put the wheels into the trucks, they all roll great now. Also paint the walkways silver!
Kevin

 

I feel your pain. Seems like I have been waiting forever too for mine to arrive. (I ordered the stand alone well cars).

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kevin D Mumaw:
I found that mine did not roll well either when I got them, so I took a bunch of brown atlas wheels from my scrap box and put the wheels into the trucks, they all roll great now. Also paint the walkways silver!
Kevin<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll be putting MT trucks on them, but the last set I had, the wheels rubbed on a piece of metal on the underside of the well on tight corners. These are probably from the same mold so I'll just dremel off the metal if it's a problem on the new layout. I'm also lucky that there are no grades on the new layout either.



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Ed Harrison
Ed's Mental Cab Ride

 

I also put MT's on them but only the end trucks, mine also sat to high on some of them so I bent there O ring couplers down and filled them a bit so they road level.
Kevin

 

Well I see that most of what I have done the rest of you have done. I'm still only happy with these cars on the level. I have grades that range from about .5% upto 2% and this about kills most locos still. My little LL switchers die with them. I use 2 of them but switching requires a locos of good weight. It just seems odd to need so much HP for so few cars.

Art

 

I ordered both sets. I ran 25 of the Walthers stand alone cars with 2 SD60's or 2 SD40-2's on an Ntrak layout. I swaooed out the trucks and couplers for Intermountains but I would not recommend doing it. I would like to use Atlas brown plastic wheelsets in them and unimate couplers.

 

I picked up a set of these cars a couple of weeks ago. They had been in the box until I read this post. After setting them up on the layout, I found that my set doesn't roll very well either. Is there really a problem with swapping out all the trucks with M/T trucks? I have done this on the stand alone cars without any trouble. I figured I would only have to do the end trucks on the articulated set. Any advice on changing the articulated trucks?

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Richard Turney

 

Just got mine in yesterday's mail. They're sure pretty, but not very good rollers. I haven't tried swapping the trucks yet. I was going to use MT 1033 for the end trucks and MT 1031 for the rest. I'm not sure about the bolser pin replacement yet.

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Ed Harrison
Ed's Mental Cab Ride

[This message has been edited by ten87 (edited 28 January 2001).]

 

Thanks Alan. I hope to be running them with some AC Models spine cars once Craig gets them to me (LONG story).

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Ed Harrison
Ed's Mental Cab Ride