Operating cars derailing

[Anonymous]

So what's with all my postwar operating cars causing derailments all over my layout? I have a milk car, a #3469 dumping coal car, and a ATSF barrel car, and they just want to cause havoc when running over my Super-O switches. I removed tham all, and things run much smoother, Is there something I can do to rectify this? Is it the cars or the switches (yes, I know Super-O is a PITA and I will be selling all of it when this layout comes down, but until then...)

Any idea? Thanks in advance.

[lionelsoni]

It seems like it must be the pickup shoes. You can retract them by pushing them in and then crimping a piece of solid insulated copper wire of a suitable size around the upper part, under the ledge that keeps the shoe from falling out of the truck. Of course, the car doesn't operate in that condition; but you can at least run it and remove the wire later when you change to another track type.

[Roger Bielen]

I have the same problem with Ross switches. There was a fix in one of the mags. a while back that involved grinding/filing the shoe at a 45 deg. angle. I tried that and it works for some switches but on others it activated the coil couplers or shorted out the power. At this point I leave my operating cars where they're used.

[brianel027]

I wonder if anyone has these problems with the slide shoe on the MTH/Railking cars. I'm not a big MTH fan, only because the stuff has always been as a general rule too big in proportion for my tastes. But I do have one of the Conrail Operating Dump Cars, and that one runs like a charm. I have no problems what-so-ever with the MTH slide contact shoe, which I can't always say for some Lionel cars. But in fairness, my Lionel cars with the slide shoes are ages old and therefore there's some unavoidable wear on them.

I'll also add that I'm using 027 track. But those Lionel 027 turnouts are not above being problematic sometimes. I did at one time call MTH when the Conrail Dump Car first came out and inquired if their trucks with slide shoe contacts were available as separate sale parts... at that time they were not.

Within the past couple years, I've been converting everything to DC current operation. I absolutely prefer DC current operations since the lower end DC can motored engines that I have operate so much more smoothly. I don't worry about TMCC or Railsounds since I don't have it and can't afford it anyways.

On some of my Lionel cars, I've replaced trucks with normal ones with a roller pickup. I rewire the cars to operate off regular track current with a small off/on switch located on the car, usually on the underside within easy finger reach. As with everything, there are compromises and drawbacks. But one advanatage of doing this is I don't worry about problems with the slide shoe and turnouts.

[Anonymous]

Cool, thanks for all the replies and ideas. That's a good point about the Lionel vs. MTH issue...I also have an MTH operating hopper car and that has no trouble running over anything, so the Lionel shoes could very well be the culprit.

Thanks!

[brianel027]

I want want to add here for clarity, it's not a matter of MTH versus Lionel. It is a matter in this particular case of simply what I see as a better design with the MTH truck with the pick-up slide shoe. The MTH slide pick-up shoe is smaller and the mounting design to the truck is more solid. The MTH truck in this particular case is also more solid than the staple truck-side design used by Lionel.

On the topic in general of derailments, which comes up from time to time, it is NOT a matter of adding more weight to a car (except in the case of a light car with roller pick-ups where the spring/bounce of the pick-up can cause the car to come off the track).

The major causes of rolling stock derailments (outside of poor track) are as follows:

1) Wobble of the truck cause by "loose" mounting of the truck to the car body or frame. The can occur with trucks with a screw mounting, but are more frequently caused by trucks with a machine rivet mount or the postwar design of the nub from the truck protruding into the car frame, being held by a C-clip or horseshoe clip.

2) The opening of the coupler. With all the various makes of rolling stock, there is quite a bit of inconsistancy in this. This is also inconsistancy with the size and thickness of the acutal operating knuckle. Do your own test and look at your various makes of cars and you can see this pretty clearly. When one car has a tight open space within the coupler opening, another car coupled to it will bind when going through a curve, causing a derailment. This occurs more frequently on tight radius curves, and on "S" type curves.

3) Wheel gauge. On postwar Lionel cars, this can be from worn out nubs on the axles causing the wheels to have excessive play and wobble. On modern cars with fast angle wheels, this is cause from having 2 wheel sets on the same truck with different wheel gauges. This second problem is more frequently seen on cars with plastic trucks where wheels can be more easily changed. The wheel sets can be slightly differing on the very same car, just as long as they are NOT differing on one single truck.

In the past I've bought fast angle wheel sets in bulk. I was told these were Korean made knock off wheel sets. It was very clear to see the differences in wheel gauge within one bulk bag set. I simply had to go though them and pair them up so that one pair had the same gauge.

The above problems can be solved in a varitety of ways. Using a Dremel tool, you can grind down the thickness of a knuckle on the coupler. You can also enlarge the size/space of the opening in the closed coupler. On K-Line plastic trucks (or Korean knock-offs), you can remove the rivet and replace the existing knuckle with either a Lionel plastic one (these work MUCH better) or a replacement part K-Line die cast knuckle.

With the wheel wobble, depending on the make of the car, there are different approaches. But all the different approaches all do the same thing: you want to tighten the truck to the body getting it as close as possible while maintaining the ability for the truck to swing to the left and right.

On cars with rivet mounts, I drill out the existing rivet and replace it (depending on the car type) with a silver or blackened screw with a stop nut. It is preferable to use a truss screw. Or if using a smaller head screw, using a larger black nylon washer between the car body and the screw. On MTH and Industrial Rail cars, I grind down the height of the nub that protrudes into the car body, and then reinstall the truck.

These techniques really do work and my layout proves it. I run short 9 inch Lionel MPC cars with plastic trucks at the lead of a train pulling heavier cars with die cast trucks with no derailments when backing up the train on tight 027 curves, "S" curve designs and even "S" curves that are on turnouts. The only time I need to add additional weight as I said above, is on cars that are exceptionally light (an Lionel MPC tank car with plastic frame and trucks comes to mind*) or cars with roller pick-ups.

*And actually on that tank car, I think the problem was more due to a slightly warped plastic frame. Some of the lower end cars with thin-plastic frames are more subject to this: 9 inch tank cars and box cars, and 10-11 inch box cars with plastic frames. The Industrial Rail cars also have plastic frames, but they are so much thicker than those of the Lionel cars, so I haven't had problems with the IR cars in this respect. I have braced Lionel box cars with plastic frames (lower end starter and tradionallly sized non-6464 series box cars, hi-cube box cars and waffle box cars) with a piece of 1/4-3/8 inch bass wood which helps with the bend in the frame. It's a little more of a challenge to brace the tank car frame.

Adding weight to a locomotive is another story entirely.