Trouble in Vampires Tunnel

[Anonymous]

You people will hear a fair bit from me about track problems at the moment I am really working my layout up to a high standard of performance for two reasons.

1/ It deteriorated a lot while I was overseas for three months and it was not being used.
2/ I am hosting a running day here for our local people 12 th November and for the entire main Australian club from Sydney on Labour day weekend in June.

Ever since i put it in i have had an odd problem in this tunnel that comes and goes, in that only my Stainz gets caught in the middle. However more recently my Crocodile gets derailed going from right to left. And my new Sachsen gets derailed going in the opposite direction. These things don't happen all the time but too often for comfort.

The tunnel consists of a 225 mm storm water plastic pipe, it is this size to suit a standard Jigstones tunnel portal that i have at each end.

I have gleaned that the pipe is catching the underside of the loco and stopping them from making contact properly. Also causing them to lift in motion causing the derailing.

Has anyone any ideas why this is so and why it is different depending on direction of travel. (Even the Stainz goes through better one way or the other).


Any advice

regards Ian

[Kiwi Down Under]

Ian, could it be that the track is going out of guage with the weight bringing the rails together allowing one side to ride up on the flange. Just a thought but that would account for the irratic derailing and depending on the support also justify why it does it more from one direction.

I have the same problem occasionaly when the timber the track is on twists slighly and the wheels ride up. In my case its easily fixed, but inside the tunnel?

Good luck
Tony

[John Busby]

Hi Iandor
I had similar problems.
They where caused by the expantion of the tunnel liner. and the subsiquent movment of the liner causing clearance problems
My tunnel has a slit in the bottom so the track can sit level. what was happening was the gap was closing in the heat.
I cured it by straping the gap open to the required width. I also had problems with a track joint in the centre of the tunnel cured by putting a single length of track all the way through the tunnel so no joint was in the tunnel its self.
Thats my problems and the solutions I found.
How is your tunnel constructed??
Has the ground under the tunnel subsided??
Is your tunnel slit at the base for track ??
Have you got track joints in the tunnel??
regards John

[Anonymous]

Yes well you two guys hit the nail right on the head, it was a big job removing all the dirt and getting the pipe out but we really had to find out what the problem was.

The walls had in fact pushed in at the bottom by pressure of dirt and moisture as well i think.

As well we cut away the slot from 85 mm to 100 mm and sliced the edges off so the parts nearest the rails was bevelled.

But we found that the camber was out slightlty and this was enough to cause the cow catchers on these locos to foul on the pipe.

The whole thing is nearly back to how it should be and I run the three locomotives involved around the track all together for about 2 hours then rversed them and run them for another two hours and not a single hickup.

Not a lot of interest in this subject i guess thats because it is factual and dealing with true to life problems that do occur on garden layouts rather than something whimsical with no real substance.


Rgds ian

[RhB_HJ]

QUOTE: Originally posted by iandor

.......................................................

Not a lot of interest in this subject i guess thats because it is factual and dealing with true to life problems that do occur on garden layouts rather than something whimsical with no real substance.


Rgds ian

Welllllllll Ian,

I could have given you some advice, but since you would have to do the work I didn't want to impose.

If I would build a tunnel like that I would skip the dirt, ballast and all the rest completely.
I would use a round terra-cotta pipe of sufficient diameter to be able to use a board that is 1.3 times as wide as the profile clearance of the engine. Mount the track on the board. Since to pipe is round you can easily level the board , the space underneath the board provides the drainage, there is no ballast and no dirt to get in the way.
And best of all you disconnect both ends of the track and haul the whole shabang out of there for maintenance when required.

But I don't have a tunnel like that, instead I have one that goes under the steps in the garden. The steps can be removed, just in case a bit of ballast needs to be added, the line slopes from left to right (same direction as the run-off) and it will work just honky-dory.

You really should have had a close look on how they do these things on the RhB and the FO when you were in Switzerland. Blooming amazing what you can learn from the prototype![;)][:)][;)]

[ttrigg]

Ian:

Sounds like your tunnel is just a tad bit too small. When I built mine (making a 90 degree turn under the waterfall) I made the narrowest width at 12 inches. Inside the turn itself the width stretches out to 16 inches. The track curvature is a radius of 4 ½ feet, made of LGB "flex" track, with soldered joints inside the tunnel. I "dry ran" the tunnel configuration on the concrete patio for 3 months before I was satisfied with my design before I began construction of the "real thing". Thus ensuring that I would have as trouble free a tunnel as I could get. If for any reason I should ever need to pull the track, the rail clamps are outside the tunnel. Doing things this way I have had to "build down" the tunnel width at the entrances to fit available "portals". If you are unable to find a solution to this problem as your construction currently exists, you may want to consider ripping the whole thing out an doing a rebuild.

As far as your direction of travel dependent derailments, you might get out the micrometer to find what part of you locos "hangs out wider" than the rest of it. You could have a burr or other small part that reaches out far enough when the temp is just right to cause your "hang ups". If you were to perform a little surgery and remove the offending bits, it might clear up the problem. If you are unwilling to do the surgery, then it is time to rip out the tunnel and start over with something wider.

[Anonymous]

Gentlemen.

You are all dead right, I agree with you, however the idea of a storm water pipe is pretty good for me, as i am getting on now and lifting a lot of weight around a lot is not in my agenda these days.

I have a jigstone set and I have the greatest tunnel portals and the 225 mm or 9 " pipe was readily available and very cheap to buy. I would have liked to go up to 250 mm or 10 " but I would have had to buy a 5 metre length which i couldn't have got home in my car, the 2 M offcut that i bought was hard enough. The cost of having the pipe delivered was nearly as much as the cost of the pipe!

In any case it isn't too small, as it is now working beautifully, I just didn't take enough care when putting it down in the first place. Just like when I got married the first time.

I have a concrete (cement) mixer rolling stock and it is the highest rolling stock i own and it goes through the tunnel nicely as well, so height is ok.

I admire you for having a right angle turn under a waterfall you have a lot of guts and talent.

Very shortly i am going to have a water feature put in my pool, which will see a spray of water spouting out of a wall into the pool, I already have a track running under where it will be but i am going to live dangerously and put an elevated track under there as well.

That also takes guts I don't know about talent though.


Rgds ian

[Kiwi Down Under]

Ian,
I like your comment.
Surprising isnt it, people from the Southern hemisphere where not everything is readily available in the shops, and we have to think outside the square appear to give the most practicable down to earth sugestions.
And then some wonder why we gete a bit testy sometimes at some comments.

Tony.

[John Busby]

Hi iandor
You could also think about large diameter polypipe which is what my tunnel is made of
only cost me a carton for a erhm 3' offcut
havn't got around to making propper mouths yet.
regards john

[Anonymous]

Yes gentlemen what i am using is a large diametre plastic pipe and really it is ideal and it wasn't the pipes fault at all that i had trouble after the fact. The problem was me, i did not do the job properly in the first place.

If I had of been as careful as I was when redoing the job in the firat place i wouldn't have had to redo it.

And i think it is a lesson for life, "do it correctly the first time and there won't be a second time!

Tony I have been aware for some time, say 20 years that a new form of discrimination is alive and well and hardly anyone has noticed it but nevertheless it is there and getting more so as the world gets smaller.

I am talking about hemispherical discrimination.; we are definitely discriminated against because we live in the southern hemisphere. Even our fair moderator who is a really nice person, blithely talks about spring wnen in most of the world is not in spring. We here in the southern hemisphere are in Autumn (fall) and the entire area of the earth between the tropic of capricorn and the tropic of cancer (about a third of the world) never has spring at all; as in the tropics they only have two seasons per year and neither of them are spring!
Well anyway we can put this topic top bed the problemis solved and it is now operating in an exemplary fashion. And thanks fopr everyones input.


Rgds Ian

[RhB_HJ]

Darwin, NT October 1991

"We have two seasons: we have a dry blazing hot season and a very wet blazing hot seaon"
Tour guide on the way to Kakadu

"Year round residents in this town go a bit soft in the head, then they try to compensate with XXXX, which makes things worse. Cheers!"
Bar owner in Darwin.

Oh I have some quotes from Northern QL as well, if required.

[Anonymous]

HJ have you gone soft in the head yourself mate. You lived in Canada last time i knew and that is about as far fron Darwin weather wise as you will get, i'm surprised that you even know about Darwin. For those who would like to know, Darwin name after Sir Charles Darwin (father of eveolution). is the capital of Norther Territory, which is a territory of Australia and it is onn the verge of statehood.

I think also 4X is not the IN beer it once was. if you were inQueensand where it comes from, it was nearly against the law once to drink anything else but not so now. Even people who were born in Queensland have spoken against it recentlt. Of course they were never seen or heard from again.

Rgds ian


Rgds Ian

[RhB_HJ]

QUOTE: Originally posted by iandor

HJ have you gone soft in the head yourself mate. You lived in Canada last time i knew and that is about as far fron Darwin weather wise as you will get, i'm surprised that you even know about Darwin. For those who would like to know, Darwin name after Sir Charles Darwin (father of eveolution). is the capital of Norther Territory, which is a territory of Australia and it is onn the verge of statehood.

I think also 4X is not the IN beer it once was. if you were inQueensand where it comes from, it was nearly against the law once to drink anything else but not so now. Even people who were born in Queensland have spoken against it recentlt. Of course they were never seen or heard from again.

Rgds ian


Rgds Ian

Oct 1991

Fly to Sydney, NSW; spend several days at a friend's.
Travel "Indian Pacific" Syndey to Adelaide, travel "The Ghan" Adelaide to Alice Springs, on the bus to Uluru and later to King's Canyon, fly Alice to Darwin, treck to Kakadu etc. etc., fly Darwin to Cairns, visit Daintree, Green Island, Kuranda etc. etc. Of course ride the Cairns-Kuranda railway. Ride the "Sunlander" from Cairns to Brisbane.
Note: Took video all along the way, camcorder didn't like the heat the first day on the Uluru trip, but recovered! Got permission from train crews to film from special spots, only the QR crew was a bit snarky.
Tour Brisbane, then fly home.

Met a lot of really nice Aussies, most of them were/are very relaxed, didn't have a language problem (usually I don't, because I pay attention), the scenery was really super and except for the Darwin/Kakadu part the heat was not too bad.

On the "Indian Pacific" in the morning at sun-up: somewhere in the Outback, East of Broken Hill, train travels along at 65kmh and the kangaroos try to keep pace!