2344 NYC ABA+5 Passenger Car Problems!!

[lionel2]

I have a mix of old and new track. The passenger cars are 2530, 2531, 2532, 2533, and 2534.  The lionel lines cars from the postwar era.  Thanks.

[runtime]

Thanks for the 'heads up' Roger. That is discouraging news!

I just bought some straight 10" and 40", and some curved 031 'new' Lionel tubular, thinking that since it looked the same as the postwar, it would essentially be the same. I'd already concluded that I would avoid the current switches in favor of searching out used postwar, but I thought new tubular Lionel track was identical to the old

Lionel2: isn't it odd how seemingly identical under the skin postwar Lionel F3 units can act somewhat differently? BTW - what passanger cars are you running with the NYC?

runtime

[TRAINCAT]

Glad to hear you discovered the problem. I have found that most new Lionel Oguage track being made in China is out of guage and will cause the problem you mentioned or cause an engine to slow in curves because the rails are too close to each other and pinch the wheels as they go by. Make yourself a track guage out of a sheet of plastic that lightly fits in between the rails of a straight piece. Then slowly drag it around through the curves and see if there is any binding. You might be surprised at what you find.

Roger

[lionel2]

I found out what was wrong. There was a dip in the track.  Where I screwed down the track, the tie was bent down, thus making a dip in the track.  And this dip in the track was right at the curve.  So I fixed it.  It was a different curve than what I thought.  I fixed the problem and all is good now.  Thanks. 

[lionelsoni]

Try swapping units between the sets.  (There are 8 possible combinations.)  I seems like the culprit is the NYC dummy; but it might turn out that one of the other units is doing something odd.

[lionel2]

I have a 2344 ABA and 5 passenger cars on my main line loop running the perimeter of my layout.  the longest stretch of track.  I have the dummer A first, then my B unit, then my Powered A Unit, the 5 passenger cars.  When I go around one curve, my dummy A unit's front truck derails all the time.  But, When I am not pulling any passenger cars, it does not derail.  I noticed when I pushed it by hand by itself, the wheel does come off the rail.  I am thinking the wheel is bent or the track is bent.  I replaced the track, still derails. My santa Fe ABA, has no problems at all with this curve.  And the dummy on my santa Fe does not come off the track or derail.  What you think is wrong??  Should I look at the wheels of my NYC dummy A unit??  I mean only under heavy pulling it derails.  But the dummy A is just being pushed by the powered A unit.  I use O gauge 031 track, as well as curves.  Thanks.