When people think American OO they usually don’t think modern cars. I do have a few examples, however, and with a project to get several bad-order cars running this one is now on the road!

I purchased this model about ten years ago now from Pierre Bourassa, who scratch built it from plastic. It really came out quite well. When it came to me however it was on I am not sure what trucks but probably Scale-Craft. I had some old Central Valley HO roller bearing trucks however that I wanted to convert, as they were large for HO. To do so I would have to cut the metal bolster and work out something to bridge the bolster so that it would be wide enough for OO. Result: a good looking truck that I put on the car but it did not hold up in service, the bolster was too flexible and had a tendency to break apart.

I made three pair of these not very serviceable roller bearing trucks back around that time. As I had parts in need of wheelsets and springs to build up two pair of Graceline trucks I decided to scrap the trucks on this car. Looking around, I realized another car that did not need to be on roller bearing trucks had a pair of the trucks that Bill Johann made and sold on a limited basis. These roll and look great, perfect trucks for this great car.

UPDATE: Looking for something else I stumbled on a full page article on making this model in The OO Road! In the November, 1995 issue Pierre noted,

Being a regular train watcher, I spotted some of the above cars on the FEC line while vacationing in sunny Florida with my wife, Jeannine. We try to spend a month there every year….

I decided to build one in polystyrene and wound up building 6 to date….

I am happy to propose Johann RB trucks, but he feels a HEAVY DUTY type, such as Lionel or Nason would be best for supporting the over 100 ton load.