Budd Company (undecorated)

American Models (click for web site)

844

Passenger Car Truck

Budd Company

Die-cast

painted & lettered

Available with hi-rail wheels (#844HR) or scale wheels (#844S). The model has the requisite brake cylinder and shock strut, but no torsion bar. It suffers from two problems that are easily rectified. Its brake cylinder points in the wrong direction. Most scale modelers will want to replace the truck-mounted dummy couplers with Kadee body-mounted couplers. Doing this allows one to cut the coupler mount off the truck and rotate the truck 180 degrees; problem solved! The springs are too stiff, preventing them from compressing under the weight of the car. The result is that the equalizer rides too low with respect to the rigid portion of the truck. The third photo shows the easy fix for this situation. Softer springs will also do the trick. The third photo shows a 0.060" styrene shim between each journal retainer and the journal above it. The result is much more realistic, although the truck's springing action is much stiffer as a result.