Do you add weight to some rolling stock?

[FJ and G]

Some folks in other scales add weights. I understand NMRA even has recommended weights.

The theory goes that a car that's properly weighted (correct amount of weight and distributed correctly) will derail less, such as stringlining derailments where cars too light up front and too heavy to rear of train derail around curves.

Theoretically, if you have layed your track properly, you should have zero derailments. However, reality is a bit different.

While metal trucks would be one solution, one could always also add weights in boxcars. Flat cars and tank cars might be a bit harder to do unless lead strips were affixed to the underside of the car bodies.

Anyway, I'd like your opinions and experiences regarding this topic.

[Roger Bielen]

Good morning Dave, I see you're another early riser.  Just finished the crossword puzzle and am hitting the forum. 

To reply to your question I do add weight to problem cars, those that have a tendency to stringline or derail when being pushed in a string of cars.  If I remember correctly, without going out to the train room, I use 5 oz + (I think) 1 oz per inch of length (might be 1/2 oz).  I've found it to be mostly boxcars.

[otftch]

I add weight to all of my rolling stock.I use automotive tape weights for everythnig except hopper cars and some tank cars.For these I super-glue double ought buckhsot along the frame rails.To be extra cautious I super glue the tape wieghts also.Being metal I don't want them coming off onto the tracks. My rolling stock weighted this way (app 5-6 oz total weight) only derails if I do something stupid.

                                                                                                                         Ed

[thor]

I dont have much rolling stock  but my K-Line gondola needs some weight but I simply put stuff in it. If I was going to do the job right I'd use adhesive wheel weights and I'd try and position it as low and as central as possible. However theres a caveat, really low budget rolling stock might not last too long if weighted too much. It puts extra wear on the axle bearings and the couplers.  My K-Line has an annoying habit of letting go when it has too much put in it and the couplers are insensitive, they take a heck of a whack to lock up. 

[brianel027]

Dave, I'm surprised you ask this. I have talked about this before. You DO NOT NEED to add weight to cars if the trucks are mounted properly. Adding weight to a car to prevent derailments is a solution of last resort.

The major causes of derailments are:

1) Loose trucks that wobble. Real trains have the couplers mounted to the car body. With the coupler as part of the truck assembly, any wobble or play in the truck will cause the truck to "lift" when pressure is applied. This means drilling out the attached rivet and replacing it with a blackened screw and a stop or lock nut. I've drill out the rivets to almost every piece of rolling stock I own. My track layout breaks all the rules: tight 027 curves, "S" curves, reverses with switches, curves with switches on them - and yet derailments are very infrequent.

2) Not enough open space in the closed knuckle coupler. The Industrial Rail cars are prime examples of this but nearly any car could fall into this category depending on what is coupled with it. Coupler lacking enough space will bind and cause cars to derail especially on tight curves.

3) Uneven wheel gauge. On postwar cars, as the "nubs" on the freerolling wheel axles wear down, the wheels can move more on the axles, making them more prone to derailments. On fastangle wheel sets, you want to be sure the 2 axles on the same truck both have wheel sets that line up with eachother. This isn't so much a problem from the manufacturers, but it is from the parts vendors making repro fast angle wheel sets.

There are a few other things: poor track or switches, roller pickups that have stiff springs... these can also cause derailments.

Fix the above things first, and you will find it surprising how utterly infrequently you have to add weight to rolling stock. Meaning you can add those weights to your locos and pull more cars. My cheap plastic Lionel 2-4-0 steamers pull 20 cars with ease with weights added to the locos, as do my Industrial Switchers.

[FJ and G]

Brianel,

I'm wondering now if there's a way to mount toy train couplers to body. My minimum diameter is 072 (in just one place). It would be nice to hear from someone who's done it before experimenting myself. I know kadees can be done but I'm ok with the big couplers.

[waltrapp]

Dave: Your comment "While metal trucks would be one solution, one could always also add weights in boxcars" - let me tell you my experience relative to that.

A while back, before I started buying 'better' stuff, I had maybe 15 cars with plastic wheels and frames.  Very Light but they ran fine as is.  Then I read the NMRA standards and thought that I would try it.  DISASTER!  The cars collapsed inward going around bends.   But then I didn't have 72" curves either.

My theory is that if you're starting with relatively good ( meaning hefty) rolling stock and metal trucks and wheels, then maybe the standards work.  But I do not in any way believe that one can 'upgrade'  cheaper equipement by adding weight.

- walt

[brianel027]

Exactly Walt! The rivets used to hold the plastic trucks to the train body or frame have quite a bit of play in them. The plastic MPC snap-rivet is even worse. Though die-cast metal trucks can also have some play just from the tolerances allowed in the manufacturing/design process for the use of a screw.

On the cheaper cars, the rivets need to be drilled out and replaced with a blackened (or not blackened, as the case may be) screw with a lock or stop nut. You want to completely tighten this so the truck won't turn, and then loosen the stop nut so that the truck swivels freely.

On some die-cast trucks that have nubs that protrude into the car frame, I use a Dremel and shorten the height of the nub so that when I reattach the truck with the provided screw, there isn't as much play.

Ridding yourself of the truck wobble will go much further towards eliminating derailments than will adding weight. I can run light 9 inch MPC era flat cars with plastic trucks at the head end of a train pushing backwards much heavier cars with no derailments. The explanation is not weights, but eliminating the wobble of the trucks.

[thor]

That was a very good answer and explanation Brianel!  Its amazing how something so obvious can be missed at first glance.  As you say, adding weight makes the problem worse and yes you're right about its being better to mount the couplings to the bodies.

However the trouble with that is that once you start to get into this sort of thing you're kind of heading off towards scale modelling land, I always had major issues with all the minutiae of NMRA standards, its too much trouble in my opinion. I just want to run trains not get into a self imposed regimen of blueprinting everything. Thats why in my HO empire days, much as I would have liked to fit Peco or Kadee couplers for their alleged operational superiority, it was too much time, trouble and expense. If you're going to do all that you might as well go scale to start with.

Our problem is that we're trying to run O on N dimensioned curves, heck most HO track has wider radii than we use, I can get as much 0 gauge onto an 8x4 as I could fit H0!  Adding weight is the brute force approach, it makes it harder for the wheelsets to lift off the track and I bet long term users if they checked their oldest rolling stock would find all sorts of wear on the axle bearings, pivots and flanges where the constant use has created that sort of slop through applied force, unless the manufacturer made provision for the problem in the first place.

However I dont agree that the problem is as simple as this. I've always had problems with trucks which is why I prefer the old fashioned English short wheelbase fixed axle goods wagons for shunting and yard work as they very rarely give problems where even correctly set up trucks do. The problem is also caused by the way that trucks are mounted to their bodies and the height of those bodies which makes them sway on tight curves and their mass reacts to a different frequency and a longer moment than the trucks they ride upon.

So even though its the mechanical equivalent of patching over the cracks rather than fixing the foundations, I have found that adding weight to the mass center as low as you can get it, often helps iron out both problems.  Fortunately I only have the one wagon, the K line gondola, that ever has any problems and even though its a combination of poor design and bad balance, the quick fix that works is to put something heavy in it!

Nevertheless, your answer is absolutely correct and well thought out, thanks. 

 

 

[Jumijo]

I add weight to some rolling stock, but it's not because of tracking issues. We have a small layout, and therefor, cannot run very long trains. To make some of the steamers smoke better, I load up the cars to make them heavier.

Jim

[HopperSJ]

Very interesting conversation. I have needed to add weight to some of my lightweight log dump cars. The all plastic ones run well with all my engines except my dockside switcher. The switcher has frame mounted couplers, not truck mounted, and therefore when it pushes (not pulls) a load of empty cars the closest truck will always derail. The spring in the frame mounted coupler is nice and sturdy (too sturdy for light cars). Therefore I need to weight the car with a full load or it jumps on the turns (again, only while pushing!).

Just my limited experience....

[FJ and G]

Interesting observations from Brianel and Thor.

Couple of items:

Regarding weight, my heaviest cars, diecast, seem to be the best trackers and as a bonus, when you bump hard into them coupling, they don't fly away.

Secondly, I would not say that body mounted toy train couplers would not detract from the "toy" aspect, at least IMO. We don't want to get like some rivet counters and complain if something doesn't look too toy like (the opposite of what they say). I will try & body mount in near future (unless someone else already has and can offer advice). It would appear that the biggest challenge would be in adding a spring so that the couplers move just the right amount from side to side. I'm not ready to go the Kadee route. I think our couplers are more forgiving as far as bumpy track goes (more surface in the knuckle in the up and down movement). I could be wrong on this count so if there's any info to the contrar, please pen it.

[ChiefEagles]

I have always added weight to some rolling stock that gave trouble with derailing.  Now Brian brought up some good details.  Read an article in the early 80's about "loose play on trucks to body" and shimming them.  Wish I could find it now.  I add weight to all older engines.  I have some late 70's/early 80's GP9's and U36B's taht will now really pull.  I added flat lead weights and pulled fuel tanks and filled with fishing weights.   

[fjerome]

i add weight to the baggage cars in my 8-10 car passenger trains. without, they will stringline on one of my upgrade curves. i weighed the baggage cars versus the coaches/domes etc. once and the baggage were much, much lighter. i can't remember the exact figures. adding the weight did the trick.

[Jumijo]

David,
I've heard complaints from people with Lionel Docksiders that have the front coupler mounted to the chassis. Evidently, it derails the car it's coupled to because the spring is too stiff and the coupler doesn't move. You might run into that problem if you start mounting couplers to the chassis of your cars?

Jim

[cnw1995]

David, I know of one high-railer who 'permanently' coupled his trains from car-body to car-body. He carefully tweaked the kadee and added a soldered 'air hose' that kept things together even if the coupler twisted. I've experimented with more junior versions of this by using dark yarn to tie cars together that I never uncouple. The yard gives a bit, is never visible and if due to a coupler 'rising' the cars come apart - it holds enough for me to notice and fix it without a derailment.

[Jumijo]

Doug,

The more I think about it, your layout is a perfect candidate for FasTrack. Think of it - no more bumpy tracks or derailments.

Jim

[brianel027]

But Jim, Doug, if FasTrack is the solution, then how is it I don't have derailments? I use 027 track and have broken every single rule as far as laying track and layout design. Everyone of my 027 switches has been majorly altered. And I don't as a rule add any weight to cars, save for ones with roller pickups that bounce off track over switches.

Not a knock against FasTrack which I can see is nice, but the answer to the problems are as I stated above, simple as that. It is not necessary to add weights to cars to solve derailments, and adding weight will not solve them in many cases.

And yes, the stiff coupler spring on the Docksider can cause derailments, as can stiff coupler springs on any loco. I've had to make a few alterations on several of my locos to eliminate this problem.

[FJ and G]

Well well, I have stayed home today and spent the greater part of the day looking at trucks, couplers, etc. It was fascinating to say the least.

Not only are there plastic and metal trucks, there are sprung trucks with screws that hold the truck together. I decided to take one apart and 6 screws designed for shock control (and cosmetic) went flying everywhere. It took an hour to reassemble. I cheated and put a dab of Loctite on each screw so it would seat.

I'm not so sure I want to body-mount couplers. Some would be easy to convert but others would require shims not just for the coupler but for the truck, which depends on the drawbar for its distance. Also, the axles of some trucks keep the drawbar from dropping onto the tracks!!!!!!

I had a lot of fun.

About the only useful (or useless depending on your perspective) thing I did was to fix the pilot on an MTH F-3 using, you guessed it, Locktite. I'll post photos Sunday on this weenie rivet counting project that you can do in less than 1 minute; at least to a dummy A unit. A powered A unit requires dissassembly!! But beware, if your diameter is less than 054 you might think twice about fixing pilots. Also, fixing pilots won't reduce derailments. It's just cosmetic.

Now that my layout is completed, I feel more free to tinker.

Also, got a Cannon Rebel and took some panned shots and speed shots of my Railking consolidation flying across my bridge on battery power. If you are into manual camera operation, there's no going back!

Also regarding weight, I notice that All of my Weaver rolling stock trucks are made of CHEAP plastic. However, Weaver inserted a strip of metal on the underside, lengthwise, to add weight. Plastic is deceptive. I've learned to tap it to hear if it is metal or plastic.

[dwiemer]

One "fix" I recall from the Tips book is to use magnets for added weight.  I enjoyed reading the post about fixing the real problem and plan on spending some track time finding some troublesome rolling stock to put these ideas to use.  I do have one problem car and that is a Lionel Tank car that jumps the track at the grade crossing for fastrack.  Same car, same truck same crossing every time.  I will look into it and post my findings.

Dennis

[cnw1995]

You're probably right, Jim, except I'd bet it would be the same with FastTrak. My layout is uneven because it's built on 1 inch foam boards laid upon 10 by 29 ft. of rocks that I couldn't grade. So the boards go a bit up and down. Now the rock is all covered by an anti-radon tarp that adds to the bulk.. But I like it: the train noise; jockeying the throttle on the subsequent minor grades - and 027 curves, especially the quasi-super-elevated curves in the corners of the layout.

Brian, you're absolutely right - some of my very cheap and old K-line cars were practically unmanageable - too tall, too light and too wobbly. Focusing on syncing down the truck and getting rid of the wobble made 'em much better.

[FJ and G]

I checked out my MPC beer reefer, per Brianel's suggestion. There's a plastic pronged insert that holds the truck to the chassis and the truck wobbles like crazy. It is hard to pull the body off. There is a tab at each end of the car that you have to depress to get the roof and ends (one piece) off. I didn't mess with it as I don't want to break the plastic. But I'd sure like to put a screw in there vice that wobbly plastic fastener. What were they thinking?

[palallin]

Even with perfect track, cars will derail if you put lots of heavy ones behind lots of light ones.  One I have to run some very light cars ahead of heavy ones, I toss in a few large nuts and bolts and close the doors (or whatever method is applicable to the cars involved).  The difference in derailments is quite obvious.  I don't bother much with the NMRA guidlines, though I suppose my ad hoc efforst produce results not too much different from the often recommended 16 ozs for O cars.

[phillyreading]

I have added weight to some of my tenders so that my locomotive can pull a longer frieght train, I stuck a magnet or two to the bottom of the tender, once I had to open the tender and add the weight.

Lee