Truck Repair

No, not that kind of truck repair, unless you were thinking of the assemblies that sit beneath train cars, in which case, yes, that kind of truck repair.  Maybe rebuild is a better term.  Anyway, look at this:

The donor truck is a Selley passenger truck intended for their old time open platform shorty cars.  I have a few kits waiting to be built and have set aside some free-rolling MDC/Roundhouse old-time passenger trucks with metal wheels for those kits.  The Roundhouse trucks, to my eye, look better under the Selley cars.  Still, I don't want the Selley trucks to go to waste, even though the plastic wheels that came with would them qualify as pizza cutters, if they rolled well enough.

SO, I unsoldered the Selley trucks as best I could and though I lost a few I was able to get enough parts to make a pair.  I used the truck-tuner tool to ream a conical bearing in each side frame until Kadee ribbed-back wheel sets would fit and turn easily.  Then I "welded" the trucks back together using two-part Loctite Weld.

These trucks will run beneath the former-NP Fruit Car, intended to be run in the Morning Milk & Mail train on the Ocali Creek's Pine Branch.  I chose these Selley trucks for this car despite their difficulties in rebuilding them because they fit.  It really is a practical matter more than an aesthetic choice, though I like the look much more than the arch bar trucks intended for the car and used by the prototype.  In my fictional history, the OCRy got this car second hand and, as part of the rebuild, used some second-hand passenger trucks.  Such is the way on short lines with meager budgets.