Safety Valve wrote: Take everything off the layout, set it near the bench. Pick one locomotive that is your pickiest bad track derailer. Pick 4 rolling stock for it to pull that is top dollar. For example, I have several Intermountains that just never derails. Run the train and put a pin at every derail or trouble spot. Run it at all speeds very slow usually finds the worst trouble spots. (If you cannot go slow you cannot go fast) A few laps later you should have groups and singles pins indicating trouble spots. Get your track gauge and "Pick" at the track looking for too-wide gauge, too narrow gauge, feeder connections from the track power bus, track joints your eye on the rail plus a thumb nail WILL detect a bad joint. Look for poor grade changes that lifts your driving wheels (Long wheelbase steam) off the track. (My BLI PRR J1 loves to do that.) Turnouts, the points need to be flush against rails, power to the frogs and flange ways deep enough to carry the most crappy large flanged wheel across there. The switch needs to be big enough for all your rolling stock. Yes I can jam a 85' Heavyweight passenger car thru a #4 but I prefer #6 and Kato if necessary for them. Take a track cleaning device with you and go over EVERY INCH of track starting on the mains then passing sidings then industry tracks followed by the yard and engine areas. Do something, dont just sit there staring at your empire and say "OIY! I CANNOT DO ALL THAT" YES. YOU. CAN. Set aside all stock with plastic wheels. Find quality metal wheels for them. CHECK EACH metal wheel/axle that goes onto the rolling stock. Get a micro mark ream tool that will clean out the junk from the sideframes. Put the crappy plastic couplers out and put Kaydees on. I have NEVER EVER HAD a Kaydee fail. They are the final solution. Just get a coupler tester and bend those low hanging pins or shim em if necessary. Under sets, over sets, long shank short shank whatever you need for that specific car until you get it to play nice with your other cars. Leave your locomotive couplers alone unless they for some reason fail your coupler tester or other wise pick low spots on the track. Replace those with NON CONDUCTING couplers. Or you will see Consists fight each other on DCC and that is not a pretty sight. Continue to run your pickiest locomotive and it's small train of very reliable cars addressing each trouble spot until you have none. It will take time. Those pins should be all gone from your railroad before you highball. Keep the temperature as constant as you can in your train room. If you STILL have trouble spots at one or two pins, consider replacing the track with a more bullet proof solution. Keep in mind that large peice of top dollar rolling stock wont go thru a 18" radius curve. Match your equiptment with the availible largest radius. If you still want to throw that 400 dollar P2K engine dont do it. Sell it and replace it with something that will meet your expectations. I had a crappy tyco 0-8-0 for a trainset that got thrown many a time. (I finally destroyed it slowly in a 1 hour fun filled joy at the bench as a teen) That is the reason I rely on BLI for quality steam these days. Every "Bad" engine has been sold off for close to market value and the money used to seed replacement motive power. All your rolling stock should have three-point suspension. Rolling stock that wobbles irritates the hell out of me. What you do is tighten one truck so that it rotates to follow curves ONLY NO TILT. The other truck you tighten the screw and then back off 1/2 turn to allow it some tilt in addition to Rotate. All your cars should feel "Equal" in weight to the engine. My Athearn boxcars were weighted to 4 ounces. Yes they are heavy but they stay on the track and I have sufficent motive power to move any train of them. Take a break get away from the hobby room until you actually feel a desire to run trains again. That should take a week or so. With motivation comes desire to do things right. Good luck. P.S. Sell them if you want to, run trains if you want to. Dont come back here with woe-is-me saying yer getting out. Either stay in the cab and drive or get off the highway. I want you to enjoy the hobby, it is supposed to be something that keeps you out of trouble. No one gets arrested for running trains in the basement on a friday night.
Take everything off the layout, set it near the bench.
Pick one locomotive that is your pickiest bad track derailer.
Pick 4 rolling stock for it to pull that is top dollar. For example, I have several Intermountains that just never derails.
Run the train and put a pin at every derail or trouble spot. Run it at all speeds very slow usually finds the worst trouble spots. (If you cannot go slow you cannot go fast)
A few laps later you should have groups and singles pins indicating trouble spots.
Get your track gauge and "Pick" at the track looking for too-wide gauge, too narrow gauge, feeder connections from the track power bus, track joints your eye on the rail plus a thumb nail WILL detect a bad joint. Look for poor grade changes that lifts your driving wheels (Long wheelbase steam) off the track. (My BLI PRR J1 loves to do that.)
Turnouts, the points need to be flush against rails, power to the frogs and flange ways deep enough to carry the most crappy large flanged wheel across there. The switch needs to be big enough for all your rolling stock. Yes I can jam a 85' Heavyweight passenger car thru a #4 but I prefer #6 and Kato if necessary for them.
Take a track cleaning device with you and go over EVERY INCH of track starting on the mains then passing sidings then industry tracks followed by the yard and engine areas.
Do something, dont just sit there staring at your empire and say "OIY! I CANNOT DO ALL THAT" YES. YOU. CAN.
Set aside all stock with plastic wheels. Find quality metal wheels for them. CHECK EACH metal wheel/axle that goes onto the rolling stock. Get a micro mark ream tool that will clean out the junk from the sideframes.
Put the crappy plastic couplers out and put Kaydees on. I have NEVER EVER HAD a Kaydee fail. They are the final solution. Just get a coupler tester and bend those low hanging pins or shim em if necessary. Under sets, over sets, long shank short shank whatever you need for that specific car until you get it to play nice with your other cars.
Leave your locomotive couplers alone unless they for some reason fail your coupler tester or other wise pick low spots on the track. Replace those with NON CONDUCTING couplers. Or you will see Consists fight each other on DCC and that is not a pretty sight.
Continue to run your pickiest locomotive and it's small train of very reliable cars addressing each trouble spot until you have none. It will take time. Those pins should be all gone from your railroad before you highball.
Keep the temperature as constant as you can in your train room.
If you STILL have trouble spots at one or two pins, consider replacing the track with a more bullet proof solution.
Keep in mind that large peice of top dollar rolling stock wont go thru a 18" radius curve. Match your equiptment with the availible largest radius.
If you still want to throw that 400 dollar P2K engine dont do it. Sell it and replace it with something that will meet your expectations. I had a crappy tyco 0-8-0 for a trainset that got thrown many a time. (I finally destroyed it slowly in a 1 hour fun filled joy at the bench as a teen)
That is the reason I rely on BLI for quality steam these days. Every "Bad" engine has been sold off for close to market value and the money used to seed replacement motive power.
All your rolling stock should have three-point suspension. Rolling stock that wobbles irritates the hell out of me. What you do is tighten one truck so that it rotates to follow curves ONLY NO TILT. The other truck you tighten the screw and then back off 1/2 turn to allow it some tilt in addition to Rotate.
All your cars should feel "Equal" in weight to the engine. My Athearn boxcars were weighted to 4 ounces. Yes they are heavy but they stay on the track and I have sufficent motive power to move any train of them.
Take a break get away from the hobby room until you actually feel a desire to run trains again. That should take a week or so. With motivation comes desire to do things right.
Good luck.
P.S. Sell them if you want to, run trains if you want to. Dont come back here with woe-is-me saying yer getting out. Either stay in the cab and drive or get off the highway.
I want you to enjoy the hobby, it is supposed to be something that keeps you out of trouble. No one gets arrested for running trains in the basement on a friday night.
SafetyValve, excellently put. This item should be printed and hung in the train room ... sort of like the 10 commandments of ...
Persistence tempered by patience is a virtue.
Regards,
Tom
cudaken wrote: First I hate to sound like a cry baby, but I have no HO Train friends to call and talk with. Or to vist with. So I come here to vent. When it is a 1:1 car, I have a support groupe that is local I can go to (friends) but they normaly come to me. If I called one up and tell them my train derail's and I am P--ed off what should I do, they hang up on me. At this point I am a out cast playing with trains. Been told more than a few time "Grow up and quite playing with kid toys and be a man"! Hum, seems I was told that here as well.
First I hate to sound like a cry baby, but I have no HO Train friends to call and talk with. Or to vist with. So I come here to vent. When it is a 1:1 car, I have a support groupe that is local I can go to (friends) but they normaly come to me. If I called one up and tell them my train derail's and I am P--ed off what should I do, they hang up on me. At this point I am a out cast playing with trains. Been told more than a few time "Grow up and quite playing with kid toys and be a man"! Hum, seems I was told that here as well.
If that is what your "friends" think- find new friends.
It is what YOU want to do, not them. Don't even converse with them about your hobby.
Unlike working on real things, nothing involving model/toy trains has to be taken too seriously. It is not like you are going to be carting your layout to a NMRA convention anytime soon.
You can spell, and compose messages alright, so it proves that you have a brain, and can think.
And always remember that Murphy is going to be there with you.
I've been there, Ken.
I used to have a lot of trouble keeping trains on the tracks. I understand your urge to throw things - several cars and a loco or two over the years have hit the cement walls and died an ignominous death. On one occasion I even took a hammer and chisel to a recalcitrant turnout! It actually helped - I felt better for having vented the frustration, and I installed a new turnout (not a small investment for me in those days) that worked properly.
But all that was years ago. If I hadn't solved the problem of derailments, I would not be in the hobby by now.
My solution was very simple, and I still follow it. All I did was adopt standards and two rules for my rolling stock and track, and stick with them.
Rule one: Apply the following standards before anything hits the rails:
A. Before a car hits the tracks, metal sprung trucks (Kadee usually, but other brands are good, too) are installed, after they're checked for flaws and proper gauge. I make sure they swivel properly.
B. Kadee couplers are used (I have a mix of 5's and 58's), with the installation checked for height and glad hand (the curved hanging metal pin) adjustement with a coupler gauge.
C. Weight is NOT an issue - the real railroads run cars full and empty, so the weight varies. So it does on my cars.
D. I check locos for wheel gauge and coupler height, and that's it in the beginning. They go on the track and run in before I tweak the mechanisms.
E. I'm reasonably careful when I lay track, but I'm NOT a fanatic. If I find out a section of track is a problem, I replace it, that's all.
Rule two (the most important thing of all): If a car or loco doesn't stay on the tracks, or if the track itself is still a problem after one or two hours of fiddling with it, it leaves the layout - permanently.
With the removal of two or three cranky cars out of over 50, my derailments were reduced by over 90 per cent. Doing steps 1 through 5 took care of 90 per cent of the rest. The occasional derailments I get are generally from an equipment failure of some sort (coupler pocket works loose, or a truck screw falls out or some such). It hurt to remove the cars - one was my favorite. But the fun of running trains went up tremendously!
You might want to try a similar approach - it worked wonders for me.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
cudaken wrote: I do have the NMRA gauge and trying to learn how to use it right. Yes to the people here it is child play. But not to me yet.
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
SqueakyWheels wrote: cudaken wrote: First I hate to sound like a cry baby, but I have no HO Train friends to call and talk with. Or to vist with. So I come here to vent. When it is a 1:1 car, I have a support groupe that is local I can go to (friends) but they normaly come to me. If I called one up and tell them my train derail's and I am P--ed off what should I do, they hang up on me. At this point I am a out cast playing with trains. Been told more than a few time "Grow up and quite playing with kid toys and be a man"! Hum, seems I was told that here as well. If that is what your "friends" think- find new friends. It is what YOU want to do, not them. Don't even converse with them about your hobby. Unlike working on real things, nothing involving model/toy trains has to be taken too seriously. It is not like you are going to be carting your layout to a NMRA convention anytime soon. You can spell, and compose messages alright, so it proves that you have a brain, and can think. And always remember that Murphy is going to be there with you.
I might think there are a whole bunch of new friends here on these forums now.
Regarding engines, been there with two rebuilds that actually ran in the shop.
Trains are fun. Have a good one!
HEY!
I did give him advice between my silly sarcastic remarks. Tossing stuff when you should be relaxing isn't a good sign.
Just send me your track and put the rolling stock and structures on eBay.
Remember, when listing diesels on eBay, the phrase "no tender needed" will DECREASE the value of your engine.
Each loco should be listed alone, unless there's a dummy unit that matches since dummies don't sell well on their own.
Or just ship everything to me and I'll let you know how much fun your having.
Couldn't Ken
When things derail and you "throw them against the walll" ...
HOW'S THAT working out for you?
Don Gibson wrote: Couldn't Ken When things derail and you "throw them against the walll" ... HOW'S THAT working out for you?
Maybe if throwing things against the wall is his thing, maybe he should take up hand ball or jai lai?
Hey Ken,
One last thing to check, which I mention because we had this happen.
We bought a set of 12 different number ConCor quad coal hoppers. When we got them home, then did the usual complete rebuild of the ends of the underframes to install Kadees and put Kadee wheelsets under them. We put them on the railroad and they started derailing in some pretty strange places. Nothing that caused a big derailment, but the ones where the train is running and all of a sudden you hear that, "wheels on ties" sound. We would look at the train and one or more cars would have one axle on the ground.
We went over these cars and re-checked everything, but at first couldn't find anything. Very puzzling and a little frustrating. Not to mention a little scarey since we run live coal loads. Oh, and the cars were empty when we were having these problems.
While staring at one sitting on the workbench, we noticed the truck looked to be twisted, just ever so slightly so that diagonally opposite wheels would want to lift slightly. Apparently, ConCor had a run of trucks that were slightly warped. We swapped out the trucks on all 12 cars and never had another problem.
The point being that our NMRA gage wouldn't point this out. We've built probably close to 1,000 freight cars between us and had never had this happen before.
We also had an issue with several Kato SD40-2's walking off the outside of the curve coming out of the superelevation at one particular spot on our rairload. After much head-banging, we found out at our LHS that Kato screwed up with some of the sideframes for these locomotives. Naturally, we found this out after we pulled up that curve and re-laid it, smoothing the transition out of the super-elevation a little more, which only had a minimal effect on the problem. We contacted Kato and they sent us new, updated sideframes for free for each of our locomotives.
Problem solved. I've seen some mention of this problem on this or another forum.
The problem isn't always obvious or something you can spot with a gage.
Stick with it man, we've all been there.
Ken;
Try reading "Playing with Trains" by Sam Posey. It just may give you some insight to this hobby.
GUB
Folks, might as well kill this post. Got some of the stuff worked out and had one derail after 60 hours!
Getting ready to make the next jump to MRR, better bench work.
Not throwing again, Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
Glad to read you are back on track Ken, perseverance is the key to most of this, if there wasnt any challenge I know I for one would look elsewhere.....for a while
Keep on keepin onKarl.