Derailments on LGB R1 switches

[whitecatbob]

I have a problem with a few of my wagons sometimes jumping the frog when taking the deviant route on some of my switches. The switches are all LGB R1, a bit tight but I know but I do not have a great choice in Cape Town plus the tight curves allow me to fit the railroad into an already established garden. The wagons that derail are HLW and Bachmann with both plastic and metal wheels so I can see no particular pattern with the rolling stock other than it is always the same wagons that give the problem but not every time.

The track is laid on a roadbed of 13mm gravel and then crusher fines and I've experimented with changing the camber and level but with no real result. My next step is to use some thin brass strip to shim out the guide rails in an attempt to stop the wheel hitting point of the frog and jumping. Anybody else had/having this type of problem?  

 

 

   

[Capt Bob Johnson]

Have you checked the gauge on the misbehaving cars?

[ttrigg]

Bob:

Couple of questions.

1. Are the switches manual or electric? I had similar problem with one manual switch. The spring was not strong enough to keep the switch in position.

2. I have one switch in an area that is prone to having sand work up in between the rails and points. Are you sure that no debris is work its way up?

[kimbrit]

Try some wight in the misbehaving cars Bob and see if they stay on the tracks.

Cheers,

Kim

[whitecatbob]

Tried the weight solution, loaded up the problematic gondola with mined ore, quartz from the local garden center, but it still jumped.

I've got manual switches, but I cleaned out all the switch rails so I do not think that is the problem, plus it would tend to effect all rolling stock not just particular items.

I will check the back to back wheel measurments on the problem wagons as this could be the problem.

Thanks for the replies

BoB 

  

 

[alamosa]

Bob

I had a similar problem, for me the cause was that I did not have enough straight distance from a curve leading into the switch, when I moved the switch further away from the curve about a foot the derails went away.

[barclaysierra]

Bob,

Try this link, previous known problems with LGB turnouts:

http://www.girr.org/girr/tips/tips1/lgb_1600.html#1200

 

Lots of great tips on this site.

 And how is the weather in your part of the world?  Rain & cold here in "sunny California".

[gbbari]

Just wondered if you have resolved the problem yet.  If not, are you able to manually pull the problematic cars through the turnout slowly while lying next to it to see exactly where the derail happens?  If you can see that and replicate it several times then you have identified the problem.

Al

[Capt Bob Johnson]

I once had a car that kept derailing, turned out it had lost some of the springs in the truck.  Replaced them and derails went bye bye!

[SandyR]

I had an H-L-W gon that warped. That let it rock on the track. I switched wheelsets (with no improvement), not realizing what had happened. It wasn't until I removed the gon body that the warp became apparent. The flatcar body had risen at the ends and sagged in the middle. I couldn't find a cure for that, so I snapped the gon body back in place, and just put up with it. The car did not derail, however. I don't know if this might be the case with your gons, or not.

SandyR

[whitecatbob]

Thanks for this link, you are right lots of good tips especially the one detailing the shimming of the guide rail with brass strip. I am going to give this method a try on my problematic switch.

Weather has been hot and Windy for most the past month, not pleasant; dries up everything and blows dust and sand around. Spring, Autumn and Winter are the best seasons in Cape Town.