Lost on Rolling Stock

[tommy4u2]

Hope someone can help with some good advise on rolling stock
My Problem is I have purchased  two bachmann train sets and several items from ebay and all seem to be very cheap or toy like The bachmann sets purchased where the dcc comander set and the mckinley explorer set
the couplers on the mckinley set are just plain junk and dont work at all plus the cars dont have any weight to them whats so ever, The cars purchased from ebay have knuckle couples that brake and plastic wheels that keep falling off Can Someone Please Help with what kind of rolling stock works well and what kind of couplers are good

[Atlantic Central]

tommy4u2,

While quality levels do vary from brand to brand, HO trains are not intended to be rugged toys, they are delicate models. The plastic knuckle couplers can easily be replaced with more durable metal ones from Kadee.

I would aviod Ebay until or unless you know more about the different brands and can know in advance what you are buying. Better stuff generally costs more, and, lots of lower quality stuff from many years ago is sold on Ebay to the unsuspecting.

find a good local hobby shop and/or a local club where you can learn more from others with experiance.

Sheldon

[kevin2083]

Knuckle couplers are deffinantly better than horn hook couplers. The best kind of knuckle couplers are Kadee no. 5's. They are made of metal so are much more durable than plastic ones. They are also more expensive than the plastic ones though. If you do get plastic couplers, try to get some with metal coil springs, as the plastic "wisker" on others tend to fail.

It should be fairly easy to add weight to the Mckinley cars. I don't have any anymore, so I can't tell you how. I do remember how to fix the problem with the wheels falling out. What I did was I took out the wheels and held a lighter under the truck- not very close, just enough to heat the plastic so it can bend- and then bent the sides in just a little bit. Too much, and the wheels won't go back in and won't roll. then you put the wheels back in, check the coupler height and stuff, then thats it.

The newer Bachmann train cars are pretty nice, IMO. I also like Athearn because they can come in kits, and Atlas is also nice. Life-Like (not proto) is something I try to stay away from (horn hook couplers, low detail, truck mounted couplers...).

Hope this helps,
Kevin

[tommy4u2]

  Thanks Sheldon & Kevin
I will have to be much more carefull about things in the future with HO as back a few years ago I built a layout using MTH  O Gauge and just never thought the quality of the differant gauges would be this much. Then when I saw HO had moved into the dcc w/sound items I thought I would try a HO layout since I dont have the room for another O gauge layout.
   SO like I said before any help or advise would be greatly appreciated to give you just a little more info on what I am building is a layout that is 4 feet by 10 Feet plus a 4 foot by 6 foot L of the bottom of it, I was planning on useing the Bachmann DIGITAL set up and as sson as Bachmann starts producing dcc diesels with sound adding them to the layout So Far I havent seen to much availible in Diesels by Bachmann

[RAM]

Tom you can buy weight for .50 to a $, or you can use 15 pennies. 
the correct weight of an ho car should be 1oz plus 1/2oz per inch.  A 5 inch car would be 1oz plus 2.5oz=3.5oz. 

[PhilipCal]

Bachmann also offers a higher grade of HO rolling stock. Additionally, Athearn, Atlas, Acurail, Walthers, all offer a good to excellent grades of rolling stock. There are others as well. I'd stay away from E-Bay for purchasing just about any model equipment. There are ample retailers, many on-line, that offer a wide variety of great HO equipment at very competitive prices.

[tommy4u2]

Thanks To all
As this being the first ho layout I am building i know i will have many questions, It amazes me the differance between O Gauge and Ho, I would have never thought cutting the size down from o to ho would have created as many problems as it has, I really think with all the help you great guys have been so far I can bypass at least a few mistakes and disapoitments along the way.  

Thanks again and if I become a newsence just tell me to shut up and I will back off