Model Railroading > Genesis 50ft PC&F Plug Door Boxcar.

I recently purchased this car and proceeded to do some weathering. It's a beautifully detailed car. I'm particularly smitten with the door seal releases above the ladders on each end.

One issue I have though is with the roller bearing caps on the wheel axles. Two where missing when I removed the car from the packaging, which may or may not have been my fault. I didn't find the caps in the package. Athearn did however provide two spares, which after much effort and even trying to CA them in place, didn't stick and I even managed to loose a third in the process.

Is there a path forward with these 100 ton trucks? Perhaps a drop in replaced by someone else?

Pic's for fun.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/25 10:30 by ChrisCampi.

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Beautiful weathering job, Chris!  

I normally use a little dab of canopy glue to secure those axle bearing caps if any get loose.  
If you are out, and you don't have any more in any of your boxes that came with these Athearn Genesis PC&F Boxcars, then I would email Athearnhelp@horizonhobby.com for spare axle bearing caps.

Cheers,
Harry



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/25 11:48 by tracktime.

Outstanding job.
JB

Those are great looking cars but I never figured out what they were used for. The Evergreen scheme seems to have been forest products of some sort but the SP cars I never figured out.
Great weathering, I'm noticing the grease on the bottom of the doors.
t4p.

Many of these were former Evergreen cars that SP repainted brown after the IPD boxcar glut in the mid to late 70's made Evergreen Corp redundant. Those are vents on each end for letting moisture from the fresh cut wood out of the car if needed. I don't recall if SP bought cars with the vents or not. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/25 12:35 by trackplanner.

Evergreen Corp was created and owned by SP as a way to get their lumber and paper boxcars back to the northwest for reloading. Many of the bankrupt eastern roads couldn't afford to buy new double door/ large door cars in the late 60's/early 70's popular at that time with shippers, so they would keep SP's cars captive back there for long extended times to save money on car purchases. Being a private carrier, Evergreen cars had to be returned to the northwest (Eugene, OR) when emptied by AAR rules. The Railbox and private IPD mass influx of cars in the mid-70's eventually solved the problem and made Evergreen Corp redundant, so SP painted the cars into their boxcar scheme. 
 >Those are great looking cars but I never figured out what they were used for. The Evergreen scheme seems to have been forest products of some sort but the SP cars I never figured out.

Thank you all for the tons of great info!

Good info.
The era or time frame becomes important for some of us. Seems like a lot of interesting cars had gone to their forever homes by the early 1980's. Have to do a little back-sliding on that 1980's window.
t4p.

+ for example I don't remember seeing a green Evergreen boxcar, never saw an SP black Widow and only saw SP F's on the Passenger trains I rode.
What a hobby.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/25 19:26 by TCnR.

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> Is there a path forward with these 100 ton trucks?
> Perhaps a drop in replaced by someone else?

Those were 70-ton cars and the trucks on it are appropriate.  You might try contacting Athearn to see if they have spare bearings, and like Harry suggested, scure them with some canopy glue.

Hey Chris, Nice to see your weathering work. Looks good. I find it one of the most gratifying things in this hobby. Yes, canopy glue is good or Liquitex Matt medium is good for a flexible glue in that situation to withstand vibration of the axles. These cars had a few missing and Athearn adds extra caps in most cars. Here are some of my Evergreen PC&F Athearn cars I did for my lumber train. The are a bit more weathered to show almost 10 years of road dirt. 
Dave

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Hey Dave those look great. I've always liked those Evergreen cars. As you and Harry pointed out, I'll give canopy glue a try, but I think I may have a bigger problem as the troublesome truck seems to have a side frame out of square with the bolster as I look at it now. I'll give Athearn a shout and see what can be done.

These are both stunning models from what y'all are showing here. Certainly remember seeing SP and Evergreen cars on the GSR back in the day.

How is the rolling quality of the more recent rotating bearing cap trucks?  We couldn't get the earlier versions to roll down the provrbial 2 percent grade.

Great looking car Chris.

Excellant.

grahamline Wrote:
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> How is the rolling quality of the more recent
> rotating bearing cap trucks?  We couldn't get the
> earlier versions to roll down the provrbial 2
> percent grade.

I ended up buying a new set of trucks. Out of the package they roll very well. On my two percent grade they took off like a rocket. They didn't respond well to my weathering efforts though, which was to start with dull coat they add acrylic paint and a wash. So your mileage may very.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/25 17:44 by ChrisCampi.

So it turns out the one truck that was giving me issues with the bearing caps missing out of the box and the new ones not adhering was not square and one side flared out. Now this may have been a defect or a result of me lightly trying to squeeze the caps on in desperation. I'll never know for certain.

In any case, my LHS had a four pack on hand and some with some paint work it's a happy addition to my fleet.

Thanks for looking.

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Personally I really dislike the trucks with the rolling bearing caps. It's just not a feature you will notice in typical operating distances and they do more harm than good. In addition to them going missing, they have to have clearances around the bearings that make the trucks look unprototypical. Weathering will often cause them to roll bad if they were not already rolling bad from the factory like a tangent hopper that I recently bought.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

I had some missing bearing caps and was having a heck of a time getting the spares on.  Then I put the bearing with the outside face down on a hard table and pushed the metal end piece in with some pressure and that seemed to get the replacement solid on.

But I agree, for a benefit you can't really see when running trains, the negative of them comming off out weight the minor coolness factor.

funnelfan Wrote:
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> Personally I really dislike the trucks with the
> rolling bearing caps. It's just not a feature you
> will notice in typical operating distances and
> they do more harm than good. In addition to them
> going missing, they have to have clearances around
> the bearings that make the trucks look
> unprototypical. Weathering will often cause them
> to roll bad if they were not already rolling bad
> from the factory like a tangent hopper that I
> recently bought.

You will get no argument from me.