My rebuilt Delta & Northern RR had problem with the use of passing siding's. When I ran engin's with pickup shoes, I could run all day at hi speed Through the divergent leg then a shoe would PICK the point causing a derailment. NOT GOOD since my track plan lets me have three trains on the track ( I use track power with power blocks ) I have come up a operating plan based on the Brand of motive power to use on each section : Main line: All trains, Section A NO USA Trains. Section B NO USA Trains. Section C Anything and USA Trains running south to north only, This should minamize my Shoe equiped derailments. Have 4 Aristocraft 10 wide switch's installed, My passing sidings are 44/46 long. Hopfully this operating plan will elimante most of my problems.
Dave
The head is gray, hands don't work , back is weak, legs give out, eyes are gone, money go's and my wife still love's Me.
Dave, I know you were just providing information and not specifically asking for help.
1. Properly aligned (not bent) skates should not lock up on the frogs, are they straight or bent?
2. What turnouts are you having problems with? Brand and Model?
3. My solution, more for looks, but also to get rid of the stupid shoes, was to swap out the rubber traction tired wheelsets and to go to all "solid" wheels on the USAT locos, this increases the power pickup and allows you to get rid of the troublesome skates.
The only downside to #3 is that you have less traction, so you may need more locos to pull the same train. But there is another upside that balances this: The "split axle" problem usually happens on the wheelsets with the traction tires, since they do all the pulling... split the load between all axles equally and your problems normally disappear.
Anyway, I know you did not ask advice, but in my case: "been there, done that" and I'm happy with my results.
Regards, Greg
Visit my site: http://www.elmassian.com - lots of tips on locos, rolling stock and more.
Click here for Greg's web site
I don't think I'm having problems with the turnouts, My problem's are with USA Trains pickups. I will retest everything next week after I reinstall my modified 10wide aristo switch's
I'm with Greg on this,nothing wrong with "sliding shoe pickups", U.S.A., LGB, and MTH all use them.
As he said the shoe must be squared off and have a slight up bend at each end as manufactured. By the way, I hid my pickup shoes by painting them flat black except on the bottom.
I run both Aristo-Craft Wide and #6 switches. Do you have the replacement Frog (free) for your Aristo-Craft Wide Switches?
Don U. TCA 73-5735
Dave you said when taking the divergent route, the shoe would pick the point of the frog.
This should not happen with properly functioning pickup shoes.
Actually the replacement frogs for the WR turnouts won't help this, they are just smoother.
For the shoe to pick the point, it must be twisted some way, as to "dig into" the frog throat.
Check that they are not overly loose, move up and down properly and are parallel the the rail head.
Get down at ground level, and slowly run the loco up to the switch and see why this is happening.
I would also advise you to properly gauge your locos, and add a 20 thousandths shim to the WR guardrail. (Use the Aristo gauge or calipers to 1.574").
One of these things will solve your problem. There's no reason you have to restrict your USAT locos to certain tracks.
Thank's for the input's, I just replaced the frog's and have not reinstalled the switch's ( was out of town ) and its raining till tuesday. I did notice that I need to do some track leveling where I have the derail problem. I could have had that as a added factor.
P.S. I didn't have to login to do this update
So far I have modified all of my 10w switch's, 2 of 4 have been reinstalled, The twisted track work on my 240 deg. cruve has been leveled out. This is the area I was haveing derail problems, but only if I stopped on the entire section. This area is just before the switch's. I also took a second look at how I was running though the switchs and found that if I change the direction of travel north to south instead of my preferred south to north I could eliminate my shoe point picking problem. Since it's raining I will test out change's when it's DRY and WARM..........
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