S-Helper Service Single-sheathed Box Car

Manual

Operator's Manual (from the 4th run).

Derailments

Some people have reported that these cars can derail sometimes. Dick Karnes stated that the culprit may well be the plastic square washer that are used on the truck kingpin of the scale version of the car (if the AF-compatible coupler has been replaced). These washers prevent the car from any side-to-side rocking, which may happen on any non-level/non-even track, and so the wheels elevate above the rail and potentially cause a derailment. The solution is to remove the square washers. He suggests that if, after so doing, your car rocks excessively, put hardware-store washers on just one of the kingpin posts (between the car bolster and the truck bolster) to achieve nearly the same thickness as the original square washers. This will give you lateral equalization sufficient to prevent derailing while removing any excess rocking.

Ken Garber reported that he reamed out the square washer's hole a bit, and also removed some of the paint, and that that solved the problem for him.

Don Thompson also recommends double-checking that the trucks still have all of their springs.