emachins why dose my ho train stop and what can I do
why dose my ho train stop and what can I do
Sometimes it just does.
Better move over to the right forum and give more information if you expect an answer.
Alton Junction
Tinkering with them is part of the hobby and will not go away. It is part of the fun once you correct the problem. Get used to it. When backing go slow and it will work most of the time. Mine do well on old fashioned tinplate track and 022 switches.
dogdoc
You seem to have a good perspective on the question: what do I want to do to attain this goal? I had some similar 'revelations' based on my skill level - and decided to try to put anything 'operating' within arms reach so I could easily adjust what needed adjusting...
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Thanks for some good comment and really excellent micro analysis of how the various elements of a car relate to one another and what the implications can be for performance. Now the question is do I want to make the time to go over each car, remove the trucks and shim them, add washers and weights or whatever so that as they are pushed rather than pulled, they move along reliably right down the track.
By comparison, for me, fooling with the slider shoes to adjust their height seems to me to be a finer level of craft than i can attaim; just lacking in patience needed for such precise manipulations.
With passenger cars uncoupling at the start or end of a grade it is frequently due to lack of a transition from the flat to the grade. The sharp change of angle, especiallywith long cars causes them to lift apart.
With cars derailing when backing another cause could be having light cars nearer the engine. I add weight to all cars where possible to bring them up to near the two rail standard. My info. is out in the train room but I think its 5oz + 1/2oz/inch of length.
Stuart, for starters, people today are running more different makes of trains together with more makes of track. The Lionel slide shoes on postwar cars can be problematic over time. Wobble and looseness of the shoe makes the problems worse. I must say MTH did a good job when they made their slide shoe with some improvements in the design. I have not had trouble with their cars with the slide shoe.
On derailments, if you look at old pics and film of Lionel postwar layouts, typically the trains are just a few cars in length. On real trains, the couplers are mounted to the train car frame itself. On our trains, the couplers are mounted to the trucks. The rivets and C-clips used to hold on many trucks are loose and have a lot of play in them. Meaning the trucks have a lot of up and down wobble on them: Pick up a train car and, holding the coupler, move the truck up and down and you'll see it.
When pushing a train backwards (especially on curves, switches but even on straight tracks), the pressure on the couplers can easily cause the truck to move up in one direction thus causing a derailment. I have re-mounted the trucks on every single train car I own - YES every single one, even postwar and I have eliminated derailments almost entirely save for my own errors. Seriously no derailments, even backwards on 027 curves and "S" shaped curves. And with trains of 10 cars in length with lightweight MPC 8 inch cars at the lead pushing much heavier postwar cars. No derailments.
Even on the newer screw attached trucks, I make modifications to the mounting to tighten the trucks and eliminate their wobble.
Also, the shape and opening space within the closed coupler can cause derailments between various makes of cars. As nice as the Industrial Rail trucks are, they are notorius for derailments due to a design flaw in the coupler shape.
I'll also add that wheel gauge can cause derailments. If you look on used modern era cars, sometimes plastic wheels have been replaced with metal ones. Depending on the parts vendor, the gauge of these wheels can vary a lot, even on one single bulk bag. The key here is to make sure the wheel sets on one single truck are both the same. They can vary from truck to truck, but not on the same truck. that'll cause derailments. Loose, wobbly wheels on postwar cars or wheels not lubricated recently can also cause derailments.
Most of the modern trucks are pretty good on height. Bruce's explanation and fix on the postwar staple-side trucks is pretty good.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
I've operated my S scale hirail railroad for 20 some years pretty successfully but I've done a few things.
First, I read all the books on operation that I could and all the operation articles from RMC and MR that I could. Some of the articles from the mid 50's and 60's if you can get the reprints are the best, as most of the operation articles written now are more geared to running the giant model railroad or mimicing the exact niceties of operation on the prototype, rather than setting up the basics of operation.
Second, I built a layout with operation in mind and ran it for about 8 years (until we had to move), and made a lot of mistakes. From it I learned what to do, and for me it was meticulous wiring and track laying, laying out the industries for operation (i.e., how long to make the sidings, making sure all the sidings were "trailing", because American Flyer road steamers don't have front couplers) and developing a "timetable"..
Third, I built the new layout and debuged it, building and tearing out items until it was as good as I could get it. I got the cars and engines in as good a shape as I could, fixing sticky couplers, cleaning and regauging wheels. I then tried out the time table and decided which equiptment went to each run. Locomotives that switched poorly were assigned to through trains and the more agile engines were assigned to local runs in which there was a lot of switching. Engines that negotiated grades poorly were assigned to runs that ran mostly on the flat, and switchers that had trouble in one yard negotiating turnouts but not in another were appropriately assigned. I established which cars needed special routing (eg handled grades poorly) and altered the time table to accomodate them, and established how many cars each engine could comfortably handle and either limited the number of cars that they could carry or altered the track plan so that they could "double" the big hill (split the train in half and take it up and over in sections that were rejoined at the station at the end of the hill).
I've had fun doing this and I have my own quirky operation scheme. I also can run the trains around and around when my grandchild visits, or I can operate a train or two when I am alone.
Anyway it is "doable"
Little Tommy
I have been involved with model railroading in HO, N, and O/3-rail.
In my experience, O/3-rail lends itself to operation easier than the smaller scales. From the switch wiring, to the operating couplers, to the ease of correcting deraiments on back-up movements.
I have written occasionally about my problems with operation of my model railroad, as opposed to running my trains. They include things like slider shoes causing accidental uncoupling and derailments going through Ross and Gargraves turnouts, unexplained derailments of cars when backing, even on straight sections, and now, with some new (to me) Lional Madison cars, parting of a train ascending or decending a hill at the top or bottom due to slight differences in coupler height. The coil coupler is mounted on a tongue of metal which comes out from the truck mount and it deforms over the years or the mount wears or something, but they are not perfectly equal in height with their mates,and although they stay together on level track, changes in grade create problems. What's a model eingineer to do?
Last week someone posted a video on installing a coil coupler controlled by a whistle relay (no slider shoe necessary--whew what a concept!). In his post, he made the comment that coil coupler close with out the (force of ) impact necessary with the magnematic couplers--another opportunity for derail and (manual) intervention from above.
It's all very frustrating; How did Frank Ellsion do it?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month