WEIGHT(HO CARS)

[Anonymous]

HO MUCH SHOULD I ADD TO THESE CARS AND DOES THE LENGTH OF THE CAR MATTER?

[BRAKIE]

Richard:you don't really have to weigh your cars unless they are extremely light. i use athean,model die casting (round house)atlas,walthers,Accu rail,and they run just fine.Both clubs I belong to doesn't weigh cars either but,if you must go to nmra. com look under recommended patices20.1

[rogerhensley]

In HO, the NMRA Recommended Practice (RP-20.1) is one ounce plus 1/2 ounce per inch of car. A six inch car should weigh about 4 ounces. Much of the new rolling stock is pretty close straight out of the box and may not really need any additional weight.

You can see from the recommendation, that length does indeed matter. :-)

Roger Hensley
http://cid.railfan.net/

[Anonymous]

If you do need to add weight,an alternative to metal weights is florists clay.I needed to weight a car one evening and I had no metal handy to do the job.I weighed a chunk of florists clay and stuck it to the floor inside the car and it worked great! Gerald..........horailfan

[Anonymous]

Who ever thought that pennies had a future in model railroading, and the Treasury was going to ban them.
A penny weighs 2.5 grams or .0881834 oz. The weight of 11 pennies is just under 1 oz. Can't remember who
told me that, but I know it didn't come from an ATM.

[mnwestern]

I, too, have discovered pennies make inexpensive car weights, especially if you just need 2 or 3 per car end. Certainly cheaper than the special lead weights.
A friend of mine, a Master Model Railroader in the NMRA, didn't put a lot of stock into weighing cars heavy or the preference of some for metal sprung trucks. He found them too unreliable and that heavy cars tended to be pulled over in tight curves. He stressed having free-rolling wheels, trucks that didn't bind and properly mounted and adjusted couplers. Following his tips, as each car leaves my "new car shops" it gets at least as much attention to those areas as it does to putting the rest of the car together. Rarely do I have to change out wheel sets. Most manufacturers do a good job if you properly adjust everything and lube (graphite powder, not oil). I do had a few pennies from time to time and save the commercial lead weights with double-sided tape for adding weight to light locomotives (especially Athearns) where the added weight really makes a difference.
Terry

[Anonymous]

Yes there is the "standard" 1 oz plus .5 ox for each inch of length. I us the wheel weights with the adhesive tape on the back, they come in 8oz lengths and can be purchased through auto parts stores. They are very inexpensive,and they are cut to lenght with a pair of side cutters. The are marked and scored in .5 oz sections.

[Anonymous]

Having cars a consistent weight is very important to smooth operations. The NMRA standard is a good choice. I had the pleasure to operate on a large home layout on a number of occasions. At first glance I was very disappointed as the road bed and track work appeared poor with many dips and twists. A far cry from a solid roadbed. Much to my delight the trains ran flawless. Even the live load coal train made it up and down the helix without problems. I came to the conclusion that proper weight is the answer.

I agree that pennies make a great choice of cheap weights. It is important to keep the weight as low as possible so the car will not tip in a curve. In tight spaces, such as flat cars, covered hoppers, etc. I use lead buckshot and glue it together with that wonder material, dilute white glue. The body of the car acts as a mold. Enough lead shot is added to bring up the weight and glue is added until all the shot is covered. Once the dilute glue has dried, a day or two, I top off with a final layer of full strength glue.

Proper weight is just one element in a fine operating railroad.

[Anonymous]

Terry,
I agree with you 100%. I've been paying more attention to the dynamics of the operation of the trucks reather than the car weight to length ratio. I do try to keep my car weights at about 100 grams, but I ingore the car length. The NMRA recommended practice seems too heavy to me and this becomes a problem when you want to run long trains on grades.
I have found that good trucks, properly mounted, allow me to run lighter cars over less-than-perfect track. The real test is to run a 50+ car train through your most complicated trackwork - then run through it again, backwards!
The best rolling trucks that I have ever seen in my 40 years in the hobby are the old Lundburgs equipped with Kadee wheelsets.
Still, today's trucks make it possible to use the proper sideframe with the car you are modeling and most can be made to roll as free as the Lindburgs, but none can match the tracking properties of them.
Jim

[Anonymous]

With or without reference to weight the biggest problem for weight on a car is the C/G, (Center of Gravity). If you truly want to model you need to look at the industry and determine the "Load". I'm not sure if the NMRA Standard is for a fully loaded or completely empty car, some clarification is needed here. What I've found is, if you have a formula that works for you, who cares? This is a hobby that has a myriad of folks and levels of modelers and if you find the best thing that keeps you in the Hobby keep doing it.

NMRA standards were put into practice not for the individual modeler but the Manufactures so that we can buy a car or loco that will run on the same track as Tom, ***, and Harry.

Enjoy the hobby and let the Professionals worry abut the 'Movie' quality models.

John Newton