Model Railroading > TTEX Long Runner

 The first time I saw one of these cars back in the early 1990's, I was in shock! I thought some crane operator had loaded the trailer wrong with it spanning between cars. Luckily another "Long Runner" car was in the train so that I could see that it intended to be loaded that way. I've made models of these cars since then and learned some lessons on what needs to be done to make them reliable. I custom painted a pair of Athearn 85' flatcars for the first one, and later sold that car and painted a pair of Walthers 89' BSC flatcars. Sold that along with most of my HO stuff during a brief switch to N scale years ago. Anyways I was recently working on fixing up some old Bowser Schneider National 53' Platewall trailers, and realized I should modify them for "Long Runner" service. This involves making the forward axle so that it can slide laterally and narrowing the axle holders so there is room for the axle to slide. Also need to make sure to use the raised trailer stand. If you don't, the trailer tends to walk off the flatcar on curves. I also replaced the kingpin with some brass .032" wire that is about a 1/4" long to make for a secure pivot point.
Now I've had this set of Athearn BSC (Bethlehem Steel Car Co) F98F "long runner" flatcars for a few years now, but I never took the time to do the work to place them in service. This mostly involves painting the wheels, adding a 10k resistor to each car for signal detection, installing kadee couplers. Now since I will be taking the cars to and from the club, a drawbar is really impractical, I installed two Kadee shelf couplers with the pins cut off. If someone has a idea for a easily detachable drawbar, I'm all ears.
These Athearn cars are fantastic, and have the proper widened deck where the trailer wheels needed to twist as the cars go around curves. The sliding axle alleviated the need to widen the deck on the Walthers cars previously. I don't think I will be weathering the cars, and only slightly if I do. They were brand new near the end of my modeling era.
Feeling the need to run a SP PCX train soon.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/22 13:44 by funnelfan.

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Couple more pics of the Athearn car, plus one of the Walthers car that I sold back in 2003.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

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When I got the Athearn long runner a few years back,
I created a king pin which allowed the trailer to turn, similar to a truck on a freight car 
on a single trailer to ride the two cars.
Never had a problem with the cars on curves down to 24 inches.
Graham.

Probably 20 years ago I modeled one out of two Walthers flats and Microscale decals. When I ran them at the club with the trailers one of the rivet counters kept saying things to the effect of, they don't do that... they never run them that way. I took satisfaction in showing him a picture eventually.

I think the Walthers kit had a drawbar and it would give no running problems from just keeping the coupler plate cover off on one of the cars and connecting the drawbar to the tab when I was running them

I also purchased the Athearn Genesis kit when it came out a few years ago and I too was impressed with the details and wider section for the middle trailer wheels. I use the (unfortunately) discontinued Spring Mills Depot storage boxes, so no problems with the length of the drawbared cars now. 

Very cool! I've always been fascinated by these cars and have modeled a few in N scale. Even being familiar with them, it still looks sketchy seeing a real one go by at high speeds with that trailer spanning platforms.

Love it Ted, I grabbed one of those Athearn sets a few years ago and it sure looks great!  Have a few of the Walthers ones but those will need some kitbashing eventually to make them look right.

Nathan

It's a treat nowadays to see one of the FEC ones in service; they're getting very rare anymore... Very nice modeling...

IIRC the "Long Runners" were created to handle the proposed 57 foot trailers. Fast and cheap way to do it with minimal investment in new equipment.