Product Review: ExactRail Trucks

Today we talk about ExactRail HO scale freight car trucks.  I recently purchased a few pairs because I had accidentally damaged a stock truck that came with a freight car.  I had seen the ExactRail trucks before and wanted to try them, and since I needed trucks, that seemed like a perfect opportunity.  Initially, I bought the wrong trucks by accident, so that meant I had to buy more.  I ended up buying three different size trucks, with three different wheel sizes.  I also decided to try out their fine scale wheels, so I could see how those looked and worked compared the the standard width wheels found on most cars right out of the box.

100-Ton ASF Ride Control truck with 36" wheels.
All photos by James Ogden.

Right out of the package, the trucks look great.  They have a lot more detail than usually found on trucks.  All the appropriate writing was on the trucks, in the appropriate location.  The trucks also featured the brake beams and brake shoes, which is behind the side frame, and normally mostly blocked from view on a freight car.  It is all there on the ExactRail trucks though.  Also present is a pair of constant contact side bearings, or CCSB's, which are located on the beam that connects the side frames, on either side of the bolster.  On the model, they do not actually do anything.  On a real freight car, they are contact points on the outside of the bolster, which provide additional support for the car, while still allowing the trucks to pivot as needed.  They prevent truck hunting at high speeds, and allow empty freight cars to move faster.  Additionally, the fine scale wheels I had ordered looked very good on the trucks.  Typically, model railroad trucks have wheels that are considerably wider than scale wheels should be.  The ExactRail fine scale wheels look much closer to the proper width.  There were only two, small things that the ExactRail trucks lacked.  They had springs molded in plastic, rather than working springs, and the bearing caps are molded in plastic, and consequently, they do not turn with the wheels.  Both of these are minor things, which do not detract from the overall appearance or performance at all.

Top view of the truck.

After looking over the trucks, I decided to test them out.  The car I wanted to put them on was an Athearn car, and they fit readily on the car.  I put them on, and screwed them in without any problems.  No modifications were required to make them fit.  I later discovered that this is also true of Walthers freight cars.  The car seemed to track just fine, despite the narrower, fine scale wheels.  What I did find is that the car actually responded to irregularities in the tracks better than it had with the stock trucks.  This was due to another feature of the trucks.  The bolster beam and the truck side frames are not rigidly connected.  They are connected in a way that allows the side frames to pivot vertically around the bolster beam, allowing the wheels to rise and fall with irregularities in the tracks, without effecting the other wheels.  On rigid trucks, if one wheel or axle has to rise to overcome a bump, it often means the other wheels rise with them, right off the rail.  Because of this flexibility built into the ExactRail trucks, this is not a problem at all.  They track exceptionally well, and as far as I was able to determine, the fine scale wheels did not effect tracking at all.  I did discover that the fine scale wheels, as good as the looked on the trucks, really did not add considerable to the overall appearance of cars where the trucks are pretty well hidden.  On auto carriers, for example, the trucks and wheels really are not in plane sight, so the fine scale wheels really did not make the appearance any better.  On the other hand, where the trucks are plainly visible, such as on tank cars, the fine scale wheels actually make the car look a lot better.  The wheels appear to be much closer to the proper width, and that does add to the overall appearance.

Left to right: 100-Ton ASF Ride Control truck with 36" wheels, 70-Ton
ASF Ride Control truck with 30" wheels, and 70-Ton Barber Low Boy
truck with 28" wheels.

Overall, I am pleased with these trucks.  They look great, and they work very well.  While I do plan to buy more as the need arises, I do not plan to covert my entire fleet to ExactRail trucks.  The reason for this is simple, it is the price.  They look great, but at nearly ten dollars a car, it is hard to justify doing that.  If ExactRail ever came out with some sort of bulk package of trucks, I would probably consider it, but not at the current price.  Incidentally, they do have bulk packages of just wheels, and so if you are looking to convert a fleet to fine scale wheels, that is considerably more affordable.

Manufacturer: ExactRail
Price: $9.95 per pair
www.exactrail.com

*Note: At the writing of this post, not all trucks are in stock.  However, ExactRail recently announced that they will be restocking these in the very near future, and they currently have no plans to discontinue them.