Arch Bar Trucks Again

[Anonymous]

The write-up about the Allen Consolidation in the latest Live Steam says the tender trucks are ball bearing. Has anyone seen the prints or the journal box castings for the new trucks? Is this the same journal box that the older trucks used, but cored differently? I modified my Allen trucks for ball bearings, but it took extra work and a steel sleeve because of the way they were cored. Less work would be welcome!

[Dick_Morris]

That was me who wrote the post above. I got anonomized!

[C_Wilkes]

No, these are not the same journals. These are also not very new trucks. Every catalog I have from Allen has these modern trucks in them. The look like Modern Roller Bearing trucks used on freight cars. If you look closely at the picture in the catalog you can see the spherical bearing cap. There was a picture of his consolidation on the Bitter Creek Web Site. It showed better detail of these trucks. I think I am going to use bettendorf trucks on my tender. And the tender is hopefully going behind a 2-8-0

[Dick_Morris]

Cam,

Thanks for the response. I may just cast my own journal boxes next time.

I'm using Mercer Bettendorfs on my Consolidation. I'm glad I got them because they are nice looking trucks, but what a pain. Several months of letter writing followed by notifying the credit card company about non-receipt of anitem that had already been charged for. They finally showed up about six months after I ordered them.

[Anonymous]

My Allen Mogul is about finished. I wanted to put ball bearings in the trucks on the tender also, so I just ordered journal boxes cast solid from Gene Allen. It wasn't a problem at all, and they came 2 weeks after the rest of the castings.