I think the benefits of metal wheels overcome any electrical problems they may occasionally cause on a DCC layout.
I am 100% metal wheels and will not revert to plastic.
Jack W.
I have metal wheels on ALL of my rolling stock, and have no problems on my Digitrax DCC powered layout. I suspect someone mentioned a problem with Peco 'Insulfrog' turnouts. If the wheel tread is too wide, it can short the rails at the 'V' of the frog. Most folks apply a little clear nail polish remover to the point area to remove the problem. This was not so prevalent on a DC powered layout as only the train in the immediate block would be affected. With DCC, the entire layout can be affects by the momemtary 'short' and a fast acting DCC system will shut down the power.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
jrbernier Most folks apply a little clear nail polish remover
Most folks apply a little clear nail polish remover
Jim you are getting confused with the things around your makeup mirror!
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Make sure you use the machined metal wheels, not the sintered metal wheels like Kadee sells. Those wheels can be considered porous and pick up dirt.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
I replace all my wheels with metal when building or preparing a car for the track. No problems with DCC. In fact,t he only time I have to clean my track is after painting the rail to get off any that gets on the rail head. I don't even own any track cleaner or even a bright boy currently.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Ron51777on a DCC layout would it be better to use plastic wheels on rolling stuck, then metal wheels because of shorts.
I found the bigger annoyance to me was the additional noise caused by the metal wheels. Still haven't figured out a solution for that one.
I use all metal as does the club. It's true that the metal wheels will find any problems with your layout including turnouts but once you fix them you'll have cleaner track and much smoother operation. I also like the sound and look.
Springfield PA
I use nothing but Intermountain metal wheels on all of my cars. They operate much more smootly than plastic. They also run clean on the rails whereas the plastic wheels leave a dark black gunk on the rails that interferes with the electrical contact. If the installation of the metal wheels reveals shorts, then fix the shorts. The one downside to metal wheels though is that derailments can cause shorts if the wheels bridge both rails.
Alton Junction
Metal wheels are obviously favored but is there any reason why this would not be true for N scale?
Jerry
Rio Grande vs. Santa Fe.....the battle is over but the glory remains!
jwils1 Metal wheels are obviously favored but is there any reason why this would not be true for N scale?
The same should hold true for N scale as far as clean track. The plastic wheels on N do seem to run as smooth but I had converted mine over when I was running them.
Could be that the smaller size means it doesn;t make much difference, but even higher quality N scale rolling stock still comes with palstic wheels and often, truck mounted couplers. A lot of the RTR HO stock now comes with metal wheels, and I haven't seen a truck mounted coupler outside of train sets and IHC passenger cars in ages.
I am in the process of switching to all metal wheels on my cars. This is because I have a full block detection system and each car will have a resistor wheel set so that it can be detected. I am currently running cars on the layout that have plastic wheel sets but eventually all the cars on the layout will have metal wheels. I have currently fitted at least 50 cars so far with resistor wheel sets. I just placed an order for two 100 packs of inter mountain 33" wheels to convert the rest of the cars on the layout. Only two axles need to have resistors on them so I plan to make 100 resistor wheel sets and leave the others blank.
All newly added rolling stock will be fitted with metal wheels and resistor wheel sets before it is allowed on the layout.
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
60% of my 400+ cars still have their plastic wheels and I have no intention of changing them. These are mostly BBs but some others too. It is a myth that plastic wheels create and leave black gunk on the rails. The black gunk is the oxidation of the NS rails and from the arcing caused by metal wheels on locos. I use CRC 2-26 to clean my track 1-2 times a year and I run (DCC) a lot. I have modified all the turnouts that caused shorting. The CRC 2-26 seems to prevent any dirt buildup on any of the wheels. The layout is 20 years old and a lot of the cars are nearing that age as well..
I can't confirm one way or the other whether Kadee wheels are sintered or not, however the black gunk they leave behind is from the blackening agent KD uses on their wheel. A lot of running will eventually wear that stuff off, I have also use a Dremel with a wire wheel to polish the KD treads and they don't seem to pickup or leave any more dirt than any of the other wheels I have. There is a similar issue with the older Proto engines, The blackening use on them also wears off and is left on the rails, I pulled all the Proto wheels and polished the treads with a steel wire wheel and they no longer cause any problems.
It is important that any Athearn locos (BBs) have their sintered iron wheels changed out for NS as these are the worst culprits for creating and leaving dirt on the track.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
modelmaker51 60% of my 400+ cars still have their plastic wheels and I have no intention of changing them. These are mostly BBs but some others too. It is a myth that plastic wheels create and leave black gunk on the rails. The black gunk is the oxidation of the NS rails and from the arcing caused by metal wheels on locos. I use CRC 2-26 to clean my track 1-2 times a year and I run (DCC) a lot. I have modified all the turnouts that caused shorting. The CRC 2-26 seems to prevent any dirt buildup on any of the wheels. The layout is 20 years old and a lot of the cars are nearing that age as well.. I can't confirm one way or the other whether Kadee wheels are sintered or not, however the black gunk they leave behind is from the blackening agent KD uses on their wheel. A lot of running will eventually wear that stuff off, I have also use a Dremel with a wire wheel to polish the KD treads and they don't seem to pickup or leave any more dirt than any of the other wheels I have. There is a similar issue with the older Proto engines, The blackening use on them also wears off and is left on the rails, I pulled all the Proto wheels and polished the treads with a steel wire wheel and they no longer cause any problems. It is important that any Athearn locos (BBs) have their sintered iron wheels changed out for NS as these are the worst culprits for creating and leaving dirt on the track.
Great info. CRC makes some great products.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." -Aristotle
Most of my stock has metal wheels and I have no problem with my Digitrax Super Chief.
You engines have metal wheels, why would metal wheels on your cars be any different?
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Hi Randy,Noticed your post of never having to clean rails on your DCC layout. What is the secret? After about 4 hours of running my rails are black and locos start shutting down. All rolling stock has metal wheels. Seems some locos cause more buildup than others. I've got power feeds to 8 connectons on a total of 80' KATO Unitrack with 4 - 4 section 22.5 radius curves.
Thanks
Beats me, 100% metal wheels, all rolling stock is Proto 2000 wheels unless they came with metal wheels already - like Atlas and a few others. No Athearn sintered wheels - all locos have solid or plated nickle silver wheels. Atlas Code 83 track throughout - I WAS going to handlay turnouts but even those would have been built using Atlas rail stripped from flextrack. And no smoking - no one smokes in this household anyway but if they did, no smoking in the train room.
ANd when you do clean the track, like after painting, no abrasives and nothign that leaves a residue. The whole idea of applying a thin layer of goo-gone or anything is IMO foolish. Any sort of residue, even if it's not sticky, will attact the dust from the air. We don;t have much trouble with our modular show layout either - it does need a cleaning for every setup since most of the time when not set up the modules live in a non-climate controlled area and get transported in trailers that aren;t hermetically sealed. We run a cleaning train with a CMX car and a couple of Centerline cars, using laquer thinner in the CMX and a pair of dry pads on the Centerlien cars after setup and that's usualyl good for a coupel of days of running - in a wide open area like a mall. Most contact issues are with the need for more feeders on several older modules, not with dirty track.
But back to my home layout. If I rub my fingers oint he track, I get a coupel of dirty streaks - but the trains will run at crawl speed and not so much as flicker the headlight. It's not super dirty, liek big black streaks on your fingers, but it would certainyl fail a white glove test. It never gets any worse.
I also have feeders at every rail joint - a lot of what might get attributed to dirty track could be lack of power. ANd by every joint I mean every joint. Every rail joiner has a feeder soldered to it. A turnout then ends up with THREE sets of feeders. The only place I solder any rail joints is for curves, I solder two pieces of flex track together and attach feeders to the joint before installing a curve. Everythign else is free - I don;t reuse joiners, I take then fresh fromt he pack, attach feeders,a dn then installt he track. I've painted them quite thoroughly to hide any shiny edges so if paint's goign to seep in and distrupt the electrical continuity it already has. I don;t think it does though, not with as tight as fresh joiners are. The end result is that the only pale I have seen headlight flickers is when I missed a spot of paint on the railhead of freshly painted track. I use nothing more abrasive than a fingernail to scrape the errant dab of paint off, and no more problem. I catch most of them as I paint the track and just wipe th still wet paint off with my finger, but sometimes I miss a goof and don't catch it until I run trains next.
Hi Randy,
All my joints are soldered and have no turnouts just three tracks running around a shelf 7' up the walls, I do have two differnt cleaning cars one being a CMX but have to admit don't use them much. When cleaning manually I use a bit of alcohol on a clean cloth but could be this wonderful windy, desert climate in southern Ca. But will use your recommendation and run the cleaning car.
thanks - cadman1
I'm a bit confused. How does an Insulfrog create shorts while the Electrofrog does not. I am under the understanding the metal wheels couching both the main rail and the Electrofrog at the same time caused the shorts. The Insulfrogs are plastic and non-conductive. Not saying they don't, just do not understand how.
The insulating bit in an Insulfrog is a TINY piece of plastic where the frog rails come together. The insulated frog in eg an Atlas Snap-Track turnout is a rather alrge bit of plastic that makes up the entire frog. The frog in an Electrofrog is a large bit of metal encompassing the frog as well at the converging and diverging rails which int he default configuration get set to the proper polarity based on the point position (and you need insualting joiners on the diverging frog rails)
Since the two rails of opposite polarity come so close together in an Insulfrog, with only that tiny thing piece of plastic insulating them from one another, it's not too difficult for a wheel tread to bridge that gap. They should have made it just a few mm longer, it wouldn't have compromised operation by being too large a dead section, but it would prevent any shorting issues. Me, I'll stick with Electrofrog and power them so there are never any dead spots. It's not difficult.
There's no place for anything to bridge two rails of opposite polarity on an Electrofrog. Look closely at an Insulfrog - it's a very thin piece of plastic.
Thank you for the reply, but I am still somewhat confused with your explaination. I use all Peco Insulfrog turnouts on my layout and I agree there are two small sections of rail, acting as guardrails, beside the plastic that, if the wheels touched them at the same time they touched the main rails, would cause a short. The only issue is, I tested my turnouts, and these small pieces of metal track are not powered. The main problem with the Insulfrog is if you are using a small (short) locomotive like a 0-4-0 or an 0-6-0 steam locomotive, they will stall when they try and transit the turnout because there is no power there. The larger locomotives with multiple powered trucks do not have this issue. My Bachmann 0-4-0 does have an issue with this (stalling, which is why I only use it as a scenery locomotive, well, one of the reasons I only use it as a scenery locomotive!), but none of my other locos neither stall or cause a short. If you are having this problem, I think it is something else. Are your turnouts modified?
B. Bryce Thank you for the reply, but I am still somewhat confused with your explaination. I use all Peco Insulfrog turnouts on my layout and I agree there are two small sections of rail, acting as guardrails, beside the plastic that, if the wheels touched them at the same time they touched the main rails, would cause a short. The only issue is, I tested my turnouts, and these small pieces of metal track are not powered.
Thank you for the reply, but I am still somewhat confused with your explaination. I use all Peco Insulfrog turnouts on my layout and I agree there are two small sections of rail, acting as guardrails, beside the plastic that, if the wheels touched them at the same time they touched the main rails, would cause a short. The only issue is, I tested my turnouts, and these small pieces of metal track are not powered.
There is power there, but I have never had a time where my wheels made contact between both of the main rails, unless it was derailed. The flanges are on the wrong sides to cause a short and the plastic, although not that large, is more than enough to prevent a normal metal wheel from making contact with both rails. Are there wheelsets with metal faces that large? Maybe I am just really lucky (I'm usually not!).
Luck, or maybe differences in Peco's manufactureing across the different lines- there are Code 100 and Code 76 in the more British style track line and the Code 83 ones which follow North American practice (and a new Code 70 North American line coming, but those will supposedly be their new "Unifrog" design which are insulated but can be powered). The size of that plastic bit between the frog rails may vary, some smaller than others and more prone to allowing a wheel to bridge the rails. Standard HO wheels are .110" wide, unless you are using semi scale or fine scale width wheels (fine scale likely would not reliably pass Peco or any other mass produced turnouts, the allowable tolerance in the NMRA regular (not fine scale) standards are greater than the fine scale wheels can tolerate). I don;t have any Insulfrogs to measure the distance between the two frog rails at their closest, but if at any point it's less than .110" then it is possible for a perfectly correct wheel to short there.
B. Bryce There is power there, but I have never had a time where my wheels made contact between both of the main rails, unless it was derailed. The flanges are on the wrong sides to cause a short
There is power there, but I have never had a time where my wheels made contact between both of the main rails, unless it was derailed. The flanges are on the wrong sides to cause a short
Scroll down this link to "Electrical Issues".
https://dccwiki.com/Peco_Insulfrog
richhotrain B. Bryce There is power there, but I have never had a time where my wheels made contact between both of the main rails, unless it was derailed. The flanges are on the wrong sides to cause a short It is not the flange that makes contact with the opposite rail that causes the short, it is the tread. This happens not only with Peco but also with Walthers Shinohara. I have Walthers Shinohara 3-way turnouts with the same problem. Scroll down this link to "Electrical Issues". https://dccwiki.com/Peco_Insulfrog Rich
B. Bryce
There is power there, but I have never had a time where my wheels made contact between both of the main rails, unless it was derailed. The flanges are on the wrong sides to cause a short It is not the flange that makes contact with the opposite rail that causes the short, it is the tread. This happens not only with Peco but also with Walthers Shinohara. I have Walthers Shinohara 3-way turnouts with the same problem.
It is not the flange that makes contact with the opposite rail that causes the short, it is the tread. This happens not only with Peco but also with Walthers Shinohara. I have Walthers Shinohara 3-way turnouts with the same problem.
Thanks, great explaination. I know the treads are the limiting factor, I only mentioned the flanges because they are on the opposite side of the rail and cannot come into play unless the car is derailed.
I can see what the others are talking about now. I have never had this happen but from the photos I can see how it may, especially with code 70 or 83 track, and I will watch out for this. I use all Code 100 track which may be hepling my situations. When I checked my turnouts, I don't have any wheels with treads wide enough for this to even remotely happen, but if I ever get a short at the turnout, I will check for it.
Thanks.
-Bob
Bob, your Code 100 rail may well be the difference. All my track is Code 83, and I have occasionally encountered shorts on the converging rails of certain turnouts.
Very simple for me. The metal wheelsets have much less rolling resistance, so the same engine can pull more cars.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have all metal wheels on my layout. The only issue I've ever had was when one of the wheels - out of the box - wasn't insulated, and putting it on the track would trip the DCC system.