Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 3

Wagner made it easy to find the Truck Books by having the orange along the spine of the booklet. Almost all of my train, trolley and how-to-do-it books and booklets have always been stored on book shelves. The Wagner truck books always stood out and easy to find. 

A printed date in the catalogue is 5/1/69. Some general comments about the photos and trucks. On the cover is a photo of a model on a layout. In back of the model is scenery on a wall. The scenery is a drawing or a photo. What is important is the back-drop scenery - a photo, drawing, or a photo wallpaper has to be installed prior to making the layout. In making the layout, this can be installed later but may be difficult to do. It may not hang correctly. If you read books on designing and building layout, the recommendation is the back-drop scenery is to be installed first in the area where the layout is to be built.

Page 3 - Someone I know when researching material for the Houghton County cars discovered the truck centers were not the same distance from both ends. I don't recall exactly what he discovered. You'll have to look it up yourself. Also, if you ever have a chance to visit Houghton, MI you'll be surprised by the grades these cars had to climb. Both Houghton and Hancock (across the river from Houghton) are very unusual. They are in the copper mining area of Michigan.

Pages 5 and 21 - Introduce the "Inch" truck. These trucks can be noisy. The axel without the gear is a split axel with each wheel powered by a spring belt. I prefer the "LL" truck even if a hole has to be made in the floor.

Page 15 - The ITS300 and NS801 sideframes can be used to power The Car Works CA&E 450 series coaches. A Q-Car CA&E 3rd rail beam should be installed.

Page 16 - The McGuire 78ST is about the only power truck I have with the "Inch" power drive. Jim Osborn built a large number of single truck snow sweeper bodies. No trolley line worth its salt would be without one or even two! If you are making a model of one be sure to use a photo of your trolley lines snow sweeper. There is a lot of detail to add before completing your model.

Additional Sheets - About 16 months after the Catalogue was published, prices had to be increased. As always there were additions to Wagner's trolley trucks! 

Cheers,
Ed

Comments on Mounting Power & Trail Trucks

During last week I was sick with an infection. This means no work was done on the Blog. These are some general comments on mainly power trucks.

If you're been reading the Truck Books you may have noticed the info on installation of the power trucks. The following comments come from my personal experiences. This is easier to notice with open frame motors but is true for can motors. Also this info is true for both Wagner and Q-Car or any power trucks. When the motor is run with the armature turning in one direction vs. the other direction the armature will move inward towards the motor or outward away from the motor.

The reason for mentioning this is, over time some power trucks will make a noise when operated in one vs. the other direction. Normally power trucks are shown installed with the gear box facing forward. However, if the power truck is noisy when operated in this direction. Try turning the power truck with the motor facing forward.

Next the question, "Should the power truck be mounted in the front or the rear of the model?" If mounted in the front, the model is being pulled. If mounted in the rear, the model is being pushed. Now lets see if this makes sense. I always tried to have the model balanced. That is, I tried to have the same amount of weight on the front truck as on the rear truck.

Q-Car sells dummy motors which can be mounted on the axels of the trail truck. This will help to bring the model into balance by placing weight in non-powered truck. Either seats, underbody equipment, or car weights have to be added to bring the model into balance.

Why the concern about having the model in balance? Some models weigh enough to go through trackwork without being in balance. However, if the model is very light in overall weight; the lighter non-powered end will not track properly through tight radius curves or spring turnouts.

The gear box seemed to take up less space than the motor's magnet end. The additional space may be needed for mounting a coupler. So this means the power truck has to be: 

1. mounted with the gear box facing forward at the front of the model OR 

2. mounted with the gear box mounted facing the rear at the rear of the model. 

These conditons could help you to decide where to mount the power truck.

When there has been little space for mounting a coupler, especially between cars of a train where there is no need to uncouple the cars, dummy couplers have been used. Also, when there is restricted space for the draft gear, look at what is available from a vendor like Precision Scale Company (PSC) in the way of both regular size and narrow gauge couplers. Some interurban companies used smaller than normal size couplers. For example, the North Shore Line (NSL) used smaller size couplers in its passenger equipment to prevent yardmen from using passenger cars to switch freight cars.

Wagner Ctalaogue No. 3 is next! Cheers,

Ed

Sorry about the white, the "Blog" has struck again!!!!

Wagner Car Company Truck Book No. 2

The full title of the next Wagner truck book is O Gauge Trolley Trucks, Truck Book No. 2. 
I guess the first 2 booklets with the yellow cover were Truck Book No. 1 and 1a.

This is the first more professionally prepared booklet. From what I know, any model shown which was not available from Ken Kidder, Walthers, or other vendor were scratchbuilt by Rich Wagner. Rich was a professional model builder in his own right.

The booklet itself was not dated. The date on one of the additional sheets included with the booklet is 10/1/59.  Another additional sheets is dated 7/20/61.

Photos of many prototype cars and locomotives are included. As an aside Pittman open frame motors are used in all the power trucks. The balance of this paragraph is strictly my opinion. I prefer open frame motors over can motors. Open frame motors seem to have more torque than can motors. A single open frame powered power truck can pull 1 or 2 trailers depending upon how much each trailer weighs. Can motors are able to pull only the powered model.

When looking at the prices in the catalogue, think back in time to how much you or your parents were being paid to put the prices in perspective.

The description of each sideframe along with it's use and examples of electric railways which used the sideframe is the format used in this and subsequent catalogues. This is the information the EPTC member who approached me regarding reprinting old Wagner truck catalogues wanted. The additional pages lists parts and additional info on trucks.

The 8-wheel drives described on page 14 is the same basic design as an All-Nation or Central Locomotive Works diesel drive but for a steeple cab! This is a substantial power drive to have in an electric locomotive.

Cheers,

Ed

Wagner Car Company Catalogue Revised for 1960

During the 2019 EPTC Meet an EPTC member and friend mentioned about my reprinting the 1st Wagner Car Company Catalogue in the blog. See Post for Friday, April 18, 2014. His reason for mentioning this was the Current Lines web site was not longer available. Current Lines (CL) had purchased the Wagner Car Company from the widow of Rich Wagner upon his death.  The EPTC member asked me if I could reprint in this blog other old Wagner Car Company catalogues. He stated with the web page no longer avaiable it was extremely difficult to find out what Wagner and CL sideframes and parts had been available along with their descriptions.

I told him I have all of the Wagner catalogues. Many years ago before All-Nation Hobby Shop closed up, the display cases were being clean-up of old extraneous paperwork, etc. As one of the cases was being cleaned in a drawer below the display area were some old Wagner catalogues. I knew the empoyee and asked for the catalogues. They were given to me.

With the old catalogues given to me plus the ones purchased over the years, I now have all the catalogues up to and including #6. All the catalogues will be reprinted. The reason for replinting all the cataogues is so you'll be able to see the changes of the power trucks over time plus what was no longer available. What's important is both Rich Wagner and Ed Miller, after Rich, had a stock pile of old parts in order to be able built an old truck for a customer who may desire to double power and/or rebuild an old power truck.

The catalogue reprinted below looks like the 1st catalogue reprinted in this blog 5 years ago. However, on the front cover to the right of the "1957-1958" date is "Revised for 1960". Some of the catalogue revision and additions were print on "mimo" sheets. Also included are info about newly available O scale brass models plus sales sheets from All-Nation.

All the reprints will be presented in the Posts in a reduced size of approximately 695 x 900 pixels. Doing this will allow all the pages of a catalogue to be in a single Post. If this causes problems please let me know.

Each of the catalogues had a surprise, at least to me. In this catalogue was info regarding the Sydam Pacific Electric (PE) 1200 series cars. As far as I know the 1200 series combine and coach were the only O scale models imported by Sydam. If I were to have any PE cars, a pair of these would be the only PE cars to obtain.

Cheers,
Ed