Model Railroading > Trucks for Rapido passenger cars

I have a friend who has several Rapido moder passenger cars (just like their current offering).  If you can imagine a 4-8-2 engine can pull only 5 of them up a 2% grade.  The trucks are not very free rolling.  What would be a good replacement for them that will roll easily?

tomstp Wrote:
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> I have a friend who has several Rapido moder
> passenger cars (just like their current offering).
>  If you can imagine a 4-8-2 engine can pull only
> 5 of them up a 2% grade.  The trucks are not very
> free rolling.  What would be a good replacement
> for them that will roll easily?
I have had 10 of them and four walthers domes behind three F7 Athearn NP engines engines with no problems on the club layout in Medford.  I also have a Lionel 3985 that is cast metal not plastic that wont pull three Walthers UP heratage cars on the same layout. Could very well be the engines weight thats the problem. Just a thought as mine seem to roll about the same as the Walthers domes mine also are a mix of older NP cars Rapido put out and newer ones. Just a thought but would check out Kadee wheel sets and see if that helps. Worst trouble I have is diaphrams hooking each other on the same layout as there are some S curves that affect those scale lenght cars. Am thinking that longer shanked couplers are going to be needed.

I can not see a way to get the trucks apart to put different wheels in the trucks.    As for engine weight, it will pull 16 freight cars up the grade.

Forgot to mention that we removed the weight from the cars and it did not have much effect.  If you compare P2K Walthers freight  truck rolling ability to the Rapido trucks, there is no contest, hands down P2K wins in a walk.  So, we are looking for trucks with same rolling ability as the Walthers.

I would contact their great customer service.  Their early runs didn't have the best free rolling trucks.  That said, I did rebuild several cars and installed Intermountain wheelsets and they are great free rolling performers.

How did you get the truck apart to put new wheel sets in them?

Doesn't Micro Mark sell a pair of bass ackward pliers for spreading the sideframes enough to swap out wheels.  Look on their web site.

I got rid of all of my rapido passenger cars for that reason for the price i paid i should not have to spend more money to make them run well.

I just got a RAPIDO SP diner and was disappointed how poorly the car rolled.  It would be nice to get free rolling trucks.

Gerry

tomstp Wrote:
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> I can not see a way to get the trucks apart to put
> different wheels in the trucks.    As for engine
> weight, it will pull 16 freight cars up the
> grade.
>
> Forgot to mention that we removed the weight from
> the cars and it did not have much effect.  If you
> compare P2K Walthers freight  truck rolling
> ability to the Rapido trucks, there is no contest,
> hands down P2K wins in a walk.  So, we are
> looking for trucks with same rolling ability as
> the Walthers.
Were not talking freight cars as I only have passenger cars and since they are about twice the length which means that you have twice the number cars not the same.