Is it Jinxed, Haunted or a Monday Morning Special????

[BATMAN]

 I have an Intermountain 60' wood deck flatcar that I just cannot explain. A couple of years ago I recieved a few of these flatcars as birthday and Christmas and just being a great brother gifts. On the layout they go, and all run great except for one. Right off the bat the troublesome flatcar derails constantly and since has been checked over and fiddled with and adjusted til the cows came home. There is no way this baby wants to have a home on my layout. I am resigned to the fact that it will have a spot on a siding as a static scene.

This is where I really start to shake my head. One day I go into the layout room and notice the brake wheel has fallen off and is just laying there. Okay so I take some glue and glue it into place. Back on the siding it goes. About a week later I go in, and the coupler pocket cover has come off with contents of said pocket laying on the rails beneath it. The final straw that had this car removed from the layout was, that two pickup trucks removed themselves from the deck of the car. Does anyone else have a car with such an lousy disposition?

 

                                                                  Brent

[tedski]

Can't say I"ve run into this kind of behavior, yet.  Can you post a picture of the car?

[jguess733]

 sounds like you need to get some chicken bones and do some voodoo on that thing. Seriously though, I know you said you've fiddled and adjusted it a lot. But did you check to see if your wheels are in gauge? As for you other problems could it be some juvenile delinquent's from your scale population up to no good while you're away from the layout?

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 I used to have a boxcar that apparently thought it was very funny to drop it's couplers and trucks at the most inopportune times and usually on the hardest to reach part of the layout. No matter how well it was repaired it was only a matter of time until it broke again. Eventually I placed it on a siding where it sat for several years quietly collecting dust while the couplers then one of the ladders fell off. When I ripped up the old layout in '04 the boxcar went to the trash can with the rest of the refuse.

[BATMAN]

 Yep the wheels are perfect. I've had two very experienced fellow MRR's go over them and loosen and tighten the trucks themselves but all to no avail. I may try changing out the wheels and see if that helps. It's the fact it falls apart all on its own that's the weird part. It is unlikely any one else would go in the room never mind touch anything.

                                                                 Brent

[Robt. Livingston]

Believe what you will, but an HO freight car is a very simple device.

Check the trucks to see that they can pitch up and down freely, when encountering up or down grades.  Check that the trucks allow the body to roll to the right and to the left an equal amount.  Check that both bolsters are level and flat.  Check that the wheel flanges are not hitting the under body on rough track.  Check that the wheels are in gauge, and that the trucks are not wracked out of square (e.g. forward wheels shifted to the left, rearward wheels shifted to the right).  Etc.  You might try it with different trucks, too. 

 

[jfallon]

 Check the frame of the car to see if it is straight. If there is even a slight twist in it, the car will derail at every opportunity. I have had those kinds of tracking problems before with several types of kit cars.

                                                                                         John

[Allegheny2-6-6-6]

 Time to sprinkle that car with Holy water...... maybe it was made on a Monday?

[Robt. Livingston]

 Do they have Saturday and Sunday off in China?

[cudaken]

 Time to call Skully, Do You Really Want To Know? If you think that is weired, every time I do something on the site I get a POP UP?

 Switch tucks would be a good starting point. As listed it could be a warped frame. I would all so check to see if the truck mounting points are straight. Far as ladders and brake wheel falling of, not that odd, I just found a ladder in a tunnel to a engine I sold 2 years ago.

 Truck's get knocked off the flat cars? Sounds like a rotten or big spider living on the bench. Had a GS-4 derail when it ran over a June Bug. GS 4 lived, June Bug did not make it.

                         Cuda Ken

[SteamFreak]

 I think Mulder would consider the possibility of HO flatcar mutilations.

[wholeman]

If it starts to vomit green stuff you better call the Exorcist.  But seriously, you might want to make sure that the trucks are level with the deck.  If they aren't, then they could derail.

[Dallas Model Works]

tedski

Can't say I"ve run into this kind of behavior, yet.  Can you post a picture of the car?

It probably can't be photographed!

Craig

[G Paine]

Have you checked for a bent axle? Over the years, I have encountered 2 or 3 new cars with bent axles. That causes the wheel to go in and out of gage as it turns. Use your track gage and check the entire circumference of the wheels on the car. It's rare, but can cause derailment problems, but not parts falling off.

[BATMAN]

 After reading yesterdays responses I went to check the bent frame theory, and sure enough last night it seemed slightly twisted. Not having the time to mess around with it I put it back on its piece of track on my mantle. This morning I went in and the room was quite cool (haven't turn the furnace back on yet) and the thing is so twisted that the paper decking has partially popped off. I warmed up the room a few degrees and it slowly straightened out. I think the puzzle has been solved.

It must be a bad batch of plastic or a bad casting that makes it behave this way. Scully and Mulder can turn the plane around.

 ( EDIT)  After I posted this. I put the car in the fridge. The twist in the car really became quite noticeable. I don't know why temperature would affect only this car like this.

                                                       Brent

[SteamFreak]

 That is weird. I've never seen a car torque with a drop in temperature like that, but it explains why it kept dropping couplers and everything else.

Maybe the steel weight inside is what's bending, not the plastic.

[twhite]

Brent: 

Believe it or not, I have an Intermountain car that wants to do the same thing.  It's a PFE reefer I got about three months ago.  Doesn't want to stay on the track.  Keeps wandering off and doing its Own Thing no matter where I place it in a train.  I've checked the trucks, the wheel gauge--everything.  The weight and balance is exactly where it should be. 

But it likes to take it's own route, no matter what the rails underneath it are saying. 

I teach at a Catholic high school.  I have a Priest freind over there who likes trains, and I was mentioning this particular car to him at lunch, the other day.  He suggested that the next time I throw a dinner party at my house, he'll go into the garage and Exorcise the car (He's a Jesuit, so he can, LOL!).   "Darn thing's POSSESSED," he grinned. 

I'm beginning to think so myself.  I've got it on a yard track by itself.  It keeps LEERING at me. 

Frankly, I hope it doesn't yell TOO loud and disturb the entire neighborhood when Fr. Wanser comes over for my next dinner party, LOL!   But that little Devil (pardon the expression) is going to get cured no matter WHAT!

Tom

Tom

[BATMAN]

Hey Tom. How about I mail mine down and he does a two for one special?

 

                                                 Brent

[IVRW]

I had one combine car that was miserable on only ONE turnout. The rest it worked fine on. But it would go three out of the four directions possible on that switch. I liked to combine, so I switched the tempermental truck for one on the observation car, which solved the problem except now the observation car has the problem. Ah well.