Anyone own any of the BLI daylight passenger cars? I have the articulated car 2 coach and an observation car. Together they don't make it round the layout without derailing. One will be fine, 2 will make it several times and then derail, any more or if teh articulated car is in the mix it won't make it even once arround. Wheels and couplers are in gauge but it seems that there is not enough swing to the coupler because the cars are so tight together with the soft rubber spacers making them look great and together. BLI offered to take them back but I would rather find and fix the problem.
Gary
What radius are your curves?
Sheldon
26 & 28
Is there an issue with the electrical pickup/sprung rollers?
I owned BLI California Zephyr cars, some of which had issues with the electrical pickups being too tight and not tracking smoothly at all. Some felt like dragging sandpaper--as if electrical arcing had quickly pitted them. This, for me, on my 26" and 28.75" radius curves, caused derailments.
As I was rather disappointed with the constant derailments, and lubrication did not help the issue, I subsequently sold all the BLI CZ cars and have not purchased any other BLI passenger cars since.
I must instead recommend the Athearn Genesis Daylight SP coaches. They may not be articulated, but are/have been available in the correct paint scheme. The interiors are very nice. Athearn actually varied the interior colors so not every coach road number is the same--a very nice touch. They light very well and run very well.
Additionally, they are a 77' or 78' coach, so being slightly shorter in length, they look better on 26" and 28" radius curves.
I have had my QA/QC issues with Athearn Genesis and rtr diesels, but their passenger cars I actually consider to be among the best in actually performing on a real world layout. MTH cars I tried also were very good.
John
gdelmoro 26 & 28
You need bigger curves. Personally, not matter what any manufacturer says, I would not try to run 80' or longer cars on anything less than 36" radius curves.
While the SP articulated car bodies are not 80', they have a truck wheelbase spacing similar to an 80' car - there is the problem.
Hi gedelmoro,
Try running 4 or 5 your non articulated Daylight chair cars around the layout without the triple articluated Diner/Coffee Shop Lounge. That might help.
SENT THEM BACK ! One at a time ran fine, sometimes 2 ran around fine, three never made it. Called Model Train Stuff, they issued a RA# and a PAID Label. Boxed them up and off they go. BLI Locomotives (and maybe other rolling stock) run great. Going to buy the Atheran G passenger cars.
Well, simply stated, not everybody has big curves.
In his book "Track Planning for Realistic Operation", Armstrong stated that full length passenger equipment would operate ok on curves of 26" and 28" radius.
That has absolutely nothing to do with one's perceived appearance preferences and nothing to do with regard to diaphragms sometimes hitting and causing derailments or not.
The Walthers, Rapido, MTH, and Athearn Genesis full length passenger cars should operate on 26" and 28" radius curves, barring the occasional bad wheelset on Walthers heavyweights (which are less forgiving than the lightweights due to having the three axles per truck).
Brass CZ cars, though sometimes available at nearly BLI prices, because the trucks will hit the full length skirting on Budd Zephyr cars, may or may not work.
YES That's why my curves are 26 & 28 Iread that book before I built the railroad. Honestly up until the 85ft BLI cars I did not have a problem.
In John Armstrongs day, few passenger cars had highly detailed underbodies, or much end detail.
Trucks and couplers were allowed to swing to nearly any necessary angle, in fact, early Walthers passenger cars came with dummy coupers with a long shank, held to the floor with a small screw, no coupler box at all, so coupler swing was not a problem.
With enough truck and coupler swing, and with enough space between them, and enough weight to hold them down, sure 85' cars will run of 26" curves or even smaller.
For those really interested in the engineering dynamics of curves, couplers and car length, I suggest a little light reading:
http://webspace.webring.com/people/ib/budb3/arts/tech/curv.html
And the home page of this site has even more great technical info for modelers:
http://webspace.webring.com/people/ib/budb3/index.html
The other great modeler of Armstrongs day, who helped found one of the largest model railroad clubs ever, Paul Mallery, in his "Trackwork Handbook", suggested 48" as a minimum mainline radius for good results in HO. A recommendation that was used in developement of modular layout standards.
This is the club and layout he helped develop:
http://tmrci.org/
Armstrong was an O gauge two rail modeler, and while he was a track planning genius, his operational experiance with HO was limited.
Mallery was an HO modeler, and way ahead of his time regarding track and control. Everyone in this hobby should read his books.
Yes, I've helped to construct a layout that had 48" radius curves--for a relatively rich man who had easily 100k in HO brass--and where myself and my friends could run trains regularly as members of the "lodge" (club). That's also where I got to play with a lot of HO brass that I didn't even personally own, because he (and they) let me handle and run anything I wanted. Doubleheaded large steam, etc. lot of fun.
However, most of the manufacturers are advertising their passenger cars to operate on 24" minimum radius. Most of the time they will--if the track work is to high standards.
Most normal ordinary folks do not have space for such broad curves without having to sell out to true point to point operation, which is unacceptable for some of us. Even constructing a wye track to turn smaller trains will take up more square footage than a modest sized loop.
As I'm writing this I'm contemplating what would be required to convert my layout to point on at least one end, so that I could increase some radii above 30" to handle larger steamers, but my son does not want me to do that at all (because he'd lose a mountain and tunnels over the return loop).
PRR8259 Yes, I've helped to construct a layout that had 48" radius curves--for a rich man who had easily 100k in HO brass--and where myself and my friends could run trains regularly as members of the "lodge" (club). That's also where I got to play with a lot of HO brass that I didn't even personally own, because he let me handle and run anything I wanted. Doubleheaded large steam, etc. lot of fun. However, most of the manufacturers are advertising their passenger cars to operate on 24" minimum radius. Most of the time they will--if the track work is to high standards. Most normal ordinary folks do not have space for such broad curves without having to sell out to true point to point operation, which is unacceptable for some of us. Even constructing a wye track to turn smaller trains will take up more square footage than a modest sized loop. As I'm writing this I'm contemplating what would be required to convert my layout to point on at least one end, so that I could increase some radii above 30" to handle larger steamers, but my son does not want me to do that at all (because he'd lose a mountain and tunnels over the return loop). John
Yes, I've helped to construct a layout that had 48" radius curves--for a rich man who had easily 100k in HO brass--and where myself and my friends could run trains regularly as members of the "lodge" (club). That's also where I got to play with a lot of HO brass that I didn't even personally own, because he let me handle and run anything I wanted. Doubleheaded large steam, etc. lot of fun.
I don't have 100K in brass..........I only have 15K in cheap plastic locos.
My minimum radius is 36", most are larger.
My layout is not point to point.....in fact it is designed for display operation with a number of deticated loops intergrated into a plan that also allows prototype operation.......my space is 25' x 40'.
While my layout is not in a basement, it is about the same size as many of my friends basement layouts here in the Mid Atlantic, where most "average" homes come with that free layout space known as a basement.
My layout is large but simple - one of the reasons is so it can have large curves......
To get reliable operation with longer cars, I consider 30"/32" radius to be the absolute bare minimum.
I restrict steam loco rigid wheel bases on my layout to about 20 scale feet - no 2-12-4's or whatever......not even any "west coast" 4-8-4's......but I don't model the west..........
And even with all that, my longest passenger cars are a few 80' heavyweights, no 85' streamliners, and most are 72' or less - they look better on curves, make the layout feel bigger, allow longer passenger train car counts and can be close coupled with working diaphragms..........
Since even a 36" radius curve translates into a restricted speed "yard" or branchline curve on the prototype.........
"Rich" is a subjective and relative term............
Look we all have different design "controls" or restrictions.
My "average Mid-Atlantic region middle class basement" is much smaller than your layout space (30' x 26'-8" outside cinder block corner to corner) and had to have a children's play area and to dodge a small storage area, steps and heating/air conditioning...
Very few people build a true point to point layout or can be happy with same. I think the layout books only recommend that for the hardcore...others of us who "railfan" our own trains do what we can to obtain a continuous run.
If the OP or anybody else desires to run on a radius of 26" or 28" then why should anyone else try to tell them to rebuild their layout?
John, I'm not telling anyone what to do or not do, I'm just pointing the laws of geometry and physics as explained in the web page I linked to.
Some 85' cars will run on smaller curves, some will not. But the closer you get the limits of the physics, the more problems you have and the more important precision trackwork is.
I'm interested in ZERO derailments - that's just another reason why I run 72' cars on 36" radius curves (it is also important to me to have close coupling and working diaphragms).
If you don't have room for bigger curves, maybe it makes more sense to run shorter cars? Just a suggestion.
My youngest child is 31, I paid those dues years ago and now have a 1000 sq ft train room.........
People can desire anything they want.......that is not going to make it work reliably.
I strive for zero derailments too.
In this case, the question was about BLI passenger cars, and I responded that the ones I tried seemed to have issues with the trucks "dragging" against the power pickups in the bottom of the car, or rather the sprung roller piece dragging.
I don't believe a bigger radius would have helped at all with the particular CZ cars I owned--that's why I dumped them.
I have spent a lot of time getting my trackwork up to pretty good standards, too--making sure things fit just right even though I was using sectional track.
As you have noted, good trackwork at whatever radius is the key.
Are the Athearn Cars working better for you?
you could've still kept the BLI cars. I would have.
Have not received them yet. MTS just issued the credit today and several are out of stock. They tell me AG fills stock quickly. I ordered one Coach car, waiting for others to be available.
One thing I should have mentioned with passenger car operations: Sometimes you must replace the factory couplers. (I did not have any problems at all with Athearn Genesis couplers, but I tend to replace them with Kadee anyway as a matter of habit.)
Some have non-Kadee, really, really bad couplers. Now most folks absolutely love Rapido and are loathe to criticize anything at all that they do. My son wanted some cars that only they had available, and the painting was only "ok" on all of them (ACL purple letterboard bled onto surrounding plated, non-letterboard areas on one side of each of four cars--Johnny wanted the cars, but for $90 a car street price, I would expect better painting than that), but the Rapido couplers (at least the ones from a couple years ago) are terrible (spring tension on knuckles is inferior to Kadee, and they don't even feel right when you test them out). They are a Kadee "clone" coupler, and hang down a bit too. These couplers caused derailments for me on curves (possibly by hitting diaphragms and/or slightly too close spacing between cars such that diaphragms dragged against each other). I couldn't simply replace them with standard shank Kadee couplers, because then the Kadee couplers would rub against the underside of the diaphragms, and cause derailments that way. Instead, I think I ended up using underset, long shank Kadee couplers, which fixed the derailment issue immediately.
It ended up that using the long shank Kadee couplers only minimally affected the spacing between cars (Rapido includes long and short shank couplers, and recommends long shank for tighter radii). Those like Sheldon who want more prototypically correct "close" spacing (so diaphragms can touch) would object to using the long shank couplers, and this all goes back to the geometry issue. For those who can build larger radius curves, the changing out of factory couplers would be a less likely need.
Im a little late to the party... I have a string of the BLI daylight cars which includes 3 articulated units. So far they have only seen run time on eztrack. I have 28" radius curves and for now it runs on carpet which isnt ideal by any stretch. The only derail issues I have had were due to low spots in the track. Shimming the track with a strip of card stock to level it out usually solves the problem. I have noticed that the articulated units do not have much play with the shared truck making them not like uneven surfaces. I will say the cars do look amazing and Im glad I have a few. I hope the Athearn cars work out for you. They seem to have a pretty good product.