Hi Guys, I am looking to replace the under frame and floor of a pair of old AHM HO boxcars, that I am using as part of a kit bashing project. Has anyone done this before? I'm looking to same a little time by asking if anyone has done and what did you use? Thanks - Dave

What style boxcar?

I am willing to bet you can find an Athearn frame that will fit with little modification. Also, many of the AHM cars were re-run by other manufacturers such as Bachmann or Life-Like.

Kevin

Central Valley makes some very well Detailed 40' boxcar under frame kits

Howdy, I found a quick & easy replacement for the AHM underframes. They are the Bachmann HO underframes. They fit with a little X-Acto cutting. The frames look identical except for the coupler pockets, I suspect the Bachmann is using an updated version of the original molds. I have now replaced the floors on two AHM helium cars and two refrigerates cars (all 40ft). They are now freely rolling with new trucks and couplers. I'm using this as a stop gap solution until I can find a better detailed match and until I get a chance to do some serious finger tip slicing re-detailing of the cars. I would like to finding a suitable fish belly frame for the Helium cars. Hope this is useful - Dave

CNJ774 Wrote:Howdy, I found a quick & easy replacement for the AHM underframes. They are the Bachmann HO underframes. They fit with a little X-Acto cutting. The frames look identical except for the coupler pockets, I suspect the Bachmann is using an updated version of the original molds. I have now replaced the floors on two AHM helium cars and two refrigerates cars (all 40ft). They are now freely rolling with new trucks and couplers. I'm using this as a stop gap solution until I can find a better detailed match and until I get a chance to do some serious finger tip slicing re-detailing of the cars. I would like to finding a suitable fish belly frame for the Helium cars. Hope this is useful - Dave

Accurail makes fishbelly underframes. I'm not sure if it fits your prototype, but who knows!

Matt

CNJ774 Wrote:...
I would like to finding a suitable fish belly frame for the Helium cars. Hope this is useful - Dave

I'm surprised to read of fishbelly frames for helium cars???
Compare this foto - https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikedannem...13183@N21/ or see some more pictures of this flicker group - https://www.flickr.com/groups/2713183@N21/pool/.
There air very ordininary straight frames on the helium cars however they have a very strong brake equipment where all components exist in a double installation. I have a good picture from a well detailed O-scale model of such cars however I must find it yet.

Another option for a fishbelly underframe is that from the Athearn flatcar, either the 40'-er or 50'-er.

Wayne

Howdy, Some of the early batches of the Helium Cars have fish bellies underframes.

[attachment=26015]

Yes, I know this drawing. However I would like to see the source of this sketch, at best a blue print of prototypes.
All the cars seems to have straight frames on the pictures which you can find with searches. Or I have not found the right one until now.
Let us see more of your sources, please. This would help also for rebuilding and detailing my three models. Thanks!