# Aristocraft Freight Car Lowered Floor



## Mikie (Nov 7, 2013)

As crazy as it sounds, I just procured my first two Aristo freight cars. I'm usually a USA Trains and LGB guy (a lot of billboard beer reefers under my belt) but since I found out that many of the Aristo box cars are also 1/29, finally I decided to spring for an Aristo Heineken and a Corona box car.

Man, do the Aristo box cars sit high off the trucks! A further investigation revealed that there were second/third generation floors re-engineered by Aristo to lower the floors and make them a little more prototypical. The floors at one time were offered as p/n ART 29706.

My question is: Does anyone here have these particular Aristocraft replacement floors or know where I can get them?

And yes, I have e-mailed 'Navin' at Crest Electronics a couple of times in the past three weeks and have not received a response from him. No response usually means no dice.

I've seen three home-brew modifications to drop the floors, and I don't have the time, tooling, and patience to take the cars apart and modify them.

And yes, I've read the detailed vignette by Ted Doskaris on Greg's site:





__





Aristo Lowered Floors for 40' cars


Greg Elmassian web site on large scale trains and garden railroads, cigars, and computers




www.elmassian.com





Any help with a source for these newer floors would be appreciated!


----------



## Ted Doskaris (Oct 7, 2008)

Mikie,

Given you seem to be willing to replace an Aristo-Craft chassis / floor to lower the 40 foot freight car, there are other alternatives to replacing it, but they do require less or more work to do that you (or someone else) may consider. See the following 3 examples: 

(1) Use available 3-D printed components:

Nico Corbo has designed and offers two 3-D print variations replacement bolster portions of the Aristo-Craft 40 foot freight car chassis. Both variants have a lowered bolster portion resembling the later Aristo generation chassis. This does require making some simple cuts to the once removed existing chassis.

See Youtube video link below for Replacement Bolster only 





See Youtube video link below for Replacement bolster with body mounting Kadee pad





Nico Corbo can be contacted to purchase 3d prints at:
[email protected]

(2) Use Modified Replacement Trucks: (Admittedly, this will take some work)

Another thing that can be done in lieu of replacing the Aristo chassis / floor is to modify USA Trains Bettendorf trucks (P/N R2033) with separately sold USA Trains wheels (P/N R2093) or use Aristo metal wheels. The bolsters & side frames can be modified for lowering a car's height to be more prototypical. Because the USAT truck is made of plastic it can be cut where needed using a razor saw and cleanup using a file.

An example drawing that would lower the car by 1/8 inch (0.125") is shown:








(For this example, the car would be lowered about 70% the distance compared to the Aristo lowered floor; however, more can be cut using the same technique than shown to lower the car further, but the chassis bolster may need to be notched to clear the sideframes. In this regard, see vignette: 
"*Aristo Flat & Gondola Car - Lowered, Weighted, and Fitted with Kadee Centerset Couplers*")

(3) Replace trucks with an emulated "Roller Bearing" truck:

Yet another alternative to consider is to replace the Aristo Bettendorf trucks with USA Trains Intermodal car "roller bearing" trucks, P/N R2034 with separately sold USA Trains wheels (P/N R2093) or use Aristo metal wheels. This would lower the car by about 0.085 inch which is about half the distance compared to the Aristo lowered floor. However, If concerned about prototypes, few 40 foot freight cars that Aristo boxcars represent employed roller bearing trucks - examples include mid to late 1950s era Boston & Main boxcar and a Santa Fe boxcar with Shock Control draft gear.

It may be useful see vignette: "*Kadee Coupler Body Mounting Considerations*"

I hope this is of help to anyone interested in lowering Aristo 40 foot freight cars.
-Ted


----------



## Mikie (Nov 7, 2013)

Ted, thanks very much for the detailed reply. I haven't decided which route to take, but I'll probably consider the option that's less labor intensive. Maybe swapping out/modifying trucks would be the way to go for me.


----------



## BerkshireValleyRR (Oct 22, 2020)

Mike, I am new to g scale and modeling in general, and not a very handy guy to start with. I started in January and now I just lowered my 4th car using Teds modified USA truck method. It works, it takes less than an afternoon, and it’s very satisfying. 

Ted, thank you so much for all of the great details and information you have shared along with Greg. I am so grateful


----------

