Walthers dome car--Derailing

[Anonymous]

Last year, I purchased the Walters Super Chief Passenger cars along with the Genesis F7s. Cars all work fine, except for the Dome Car. It keeps derailing (even when not hooked onto other cars) at the same spot on the track. I've rearanged the track dozens of times to adjust the curve, but to no avail. The same radius curve exists in 3 other places.

I've adjusted the contact springs above the trucks, I've checked that the trucks are free to pivot....I give up!! What else can I check?...Yes, I've checked for kinks at the joint of the flex track... there are none.

Any suggestions????

[twhite]

Hm--interesting. Is it just one truck derailing all the time? If so, you might want to check the wheelsets on that particular truck. The lead wheelset might be a little wide and hitting that particular joint just lifts it. You might want to check the wheels with a wheel-gauge. that's about the only thing I can think of, except for trying the car in reverse, but since Walther's dome cars have interior details, you'd have your passengers riding backward all the time. I'd check the wheelsets for gauging.
Best of luck,
Tom

[Anonymous]

Walthers cars are notorious for guage problems. My AMTRAK cars had the same problem you're talking about. Do you have an NMRA guage? You should use one to check the wheel guage and then your cars should run fine.

[jimrice4449]

It's not just Walthers. I'm a serious psgr train freak and I've got a number of trains made up of those $300 to $400 brass beauties. The problem is I can't run them until I take EVERY wheel in the train and spread them on the axles until they fit the max. back to back guage. As they come, those that are within tolerances (about 2/3) are at the very minimum. The problem is I have 4 Shinohara double slip switches in my psgr depot throat and the flangeways are at the minimum. Min. flangeways plus min. back to back equals short. You can't imagine the delight in reguaging every wheel on a 10 to 17 car train. Actually, I guess you probably can.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible to swap a wheel set out of another car and then test?

[bogp40]

Once you have checked the wheels for proper gauge and the problem persists, the only other thing I can think of is that the trucks are not floating enough. Even if the trucks appear to swing freely, if there isn't a bit of side play(wobble), the wheels can't track properly over irregularities of the rails- thus a derailment. To check, back off the truck screws until both trucks are real loose. Run the train as you always do- if this works then start to tighten one truck until any car body wobble stops. I do this with all rolling stock. It is more critical w/ very light flats/ centerbeams. empty, light cars will find all the problem areas of the layout. Loaded the problem is gone, but the one loose truck can stop derailments and not have a wobbly car.
If all else fails try adding more weight. If this doesn't help, maybe others here on the forum may have an answer.
Bob K.

[simon1966]

Wheel set guage is the most likely culprit, but also, make sure that the trucks pivot well when the weight of the car is on them. I have had numerous times that a truck appears to pivot well when off the track for inspection, but when the weight of the car is on the truck there was too much friction, due to flash or other small anomoly. In other words, just because it pivots freely when hanging below the car, does not mean it does when on the track,

[cjcrescent]

Here is how we, fellow forumite rexhea and I, solved a similar problem . We have a train that is just walthers passenger cars, (all lighted), and most ran well. Two would derail at odd places but, always on curves. The gauge was correct coupler hoses, weren't catching on track anywhere, etc. and they trucks appeared free swinging. We had loosened truck screws, retightened screws, etc nothing was working. I removed the trucks, and noticed that the bolsters of the trucks and cars and the contact strips on the cars had that "rough" black surface coating on them, that is found on these floor castings. I took a small flat file and smoothed out the bolster contact area on both the trucks and the car. Basically I polished the "coating" a little until it had a shine to it. I then took a flat dental scraper and smoothed the surface of the contacts on the car, and then reattached the trucks. We have had no further derailments with these cars anywhere.

[rexhea]

cjcrescent,
The performance of the Walthers train is still excellant and running as the Southern Crescent express. Again, your valuable experience came through. One thing that I would like to add for those with radii smaller than 28". The car diaphrams are very stiff and have a tendency to hang with the adjoining car's diaphram. You need to go with a longer shank coupler or disable or carefully adjust the leaf spring that holds the diaphram out.

Thanks,
REX