Jeff Barker is back with another 3D printed product that will be of great interest to those that follow American OO – at least it is to me!

To recap first, he has a group of parts on Shapeways (including reproduction Scale-Craft bolsters, more info here), and has also designed and made available track with 3D printed ties (more info here). I have used a lot of the bolsters, that helped get a lot of trucks back on track. But at this point now I’m critically low on usable Scale-Craft wheelsets, and that is making things a bit tight.

Now to the good news, we have brand new trucks that roll great! First, a close up of the Andrews trucks, painted and on a car.

The truck is 3D printed in one piece. They are available in 6 (!) different designs:

Andrews
Andrews leaf spring
Arch bar
Arch bar leaf spring
Fox
Fox leaf spring

Comparing the different versions, the Fox trucks probably look the best, which are appropriate for models dating to around the turn of the 20th century. But all certainly look good! More thoughts on the comparison to vintage designs in a minute.

I purchased ten pair of the Andrews trucks in my first batch, and have samples of the other 5 types, seen above. They come with wheels, ready to operate! The wheelsets are based on HO 36” wheels, which are slightly undersized for OO – a wheel that is 36” in HO converts to 31.5” in OO. But this is not very noticeable, and is exactly the same size as Scale-Craft OO wheelsets.

The wheelset size and the Andrews design were perfect for the first cars I converted to use these trucks, eight Scale-Craft stock cars and two of their postwar reefers with Champion sides. My new 50-ton diesel (under construction) had no trouble pulling all of them in a train.

Part of actually operating OO models is getting good trucks on the cars — good trucks they will actually operate well on, a topic I talk about more in this recent article. In recent years I have moved as many nice cars as I can to Schorr trucks. I don’t know how many of you have tried it, but you can’t easily put Schorr trucks on a “flat floor” Scale-Craft model (the stock car, boxcar, flat car, postwar reefer, and caboose). The Schorr wheels (fully to scale!) are just too big, they rub on the bottom of the car if you have the car at the correct height. These new trucks work great on these cars. I had really been wanting to operate these stock cars in particular, and they roll and operate great.

Most of the trucks I painted black with Tamiya flat black, but three pair were painted brown to use on ATSF stock cars. This type of water based paint is perfect for 3D printed parts.

Below is seen a final comparison, the new 3D printed Arch Bar and Andrews trucks are on the top, and the bottom row are very comparable vintage Graceline and Nason.

With that I should note one negative; the 3D printed detail is a little clunky. Painted black it is not particularly noticeable, and even in brown (“boxcar red”) it is not that noticeable. And by the way, Scale-Craft trucks, while we are used to them, are very clunky for sure, and even set up very carefully only roll so well. The best vintage trucks were certainly Schorr trucks, and these new, 3D printed trucks operate just as well, if not better, with their modern wheelset profile (Schorr trucks were made to an older NMRA standard).

This brings up another point I should add, I did not try them on it, but I am uncertain if the modern wheelsets will operate well on Lionel 3-rail track, particularly the switches. But they should do fine on their 2-rail track, and any other type of scale track ever offered commercially in American OO.

In terms of my own collection of OO models, a thing to know is that there is a division between models that I really operate and those that are mostly vintage models that I could run but don’t often run. What these new trucks have done is free up good Scale-Craft trucks for other vintage models, improving greatly the operations of the layout.

I also have a collection of 1930s era models that I operate periodically. With the additional vintage designs also offered I will likely be revisiting those as well. I’ll be buying more for sure, using as many as make sense on models that I do operate.

Finally, a historical note, Andrews trucks were allowed in interchange service until 1957, and arch bar trucks were banned from interchange after Dec. 31, 1939. But many examples remained in service longer on cars that were not interchanged, and a road like my freelanced Orient would likely have kept as many of the older cars running as long as possible.

Bravo Jeff Barker for this exciting new product! If you need contact info, get in touch with me and I can send it your way.

Article updated