I have several types of the Walthers longer passenger cars, including the heavyweights with six axles. Although advertised for 24" curves, I have never had good luck with them under 26". Too many niggling problems with pivot clearances, and also the diaphragms can cause derailments as you approach the realistic minimum radius.
Persistence, determination, and some ingenuity help a lot. You must find a location that reliably derails any two cars, and then repeat trials with good light both in front and behind the offending truck(s). Do slow runs until you see the derailment beginning to take place. If the diaphragms are not the problem where they are pinched together, then look for car lift at the affected end, and also for wheel/axle lift. That place is simply too tight. It could be that the one truck can't pivot any more, and that could be from unintended contact at the pivot, on the pickups if the car has them, or on screws holding the truck outer frame elements. Could also be a guage problem if a flange is being lifted by a guard rail near a frog, for example.
The simplest fix is broader curves, assuming wheel gauge is good and that a coupler hook isn't snagging.
Hi, Thanks for all the replies thus far. I've pretty much surrendered to the coach for the time being Alot of good ideas and feedback perhaps one day after a couple of I'll give it another shot. It's only one curve and one coach. I will be the first to agree that the Walthers coaches are far better than any of their predecessors. One last thing I tried was removing the center axle didn't help much. I'm just a little miffed at Walthers for saying something like 24" radius when in fact should be closer to 28". Maybe I would have designed things differently. By the way my wife sez she could have had a darn nice waffle iron for the price of that coach. Wayne
Any of the 80 to 85' scale cars need large curves and the 24" radius is tight for this type of car. One problem with the Walthers cars I have is the electrical pick up for the lights. Those metal contacts points can cause derailments. That might be your problem if your cars have that type of electric pickups.
CZ
I've got a set of Rivarossi cars that are advertised to run on 18 inch radius curve. The do. However, they do not run on 17 3/4 inch curves. For these long cars, there's no tolerance on the downside of the allowed radius.
The Rivarossis have swing coupler mounts, that is, the coupler box mounts to another mechanism that swings further from side to side.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Those cars are monsters!
I have a roster of just under 200 Walther's passenger cars. I love 'em!
Before Walthers started producing the current generation of passenger cars beginning around 1995 or so, modelers pretty much had Rivarossi, Con-Cor and IHC. There were the Athearn 60 footers, a few Roundhouse and E&B Valley kits and possibly a few others.
I'm currently recieving shipments of the latest Capitol Limited cars and they look marvelous!
Other than lubing the axel ends and tightening or otherwise adjusting the bolster screw, and for a time they were using a throw-away Mc Henry coupler so you HAD to exchange that for a Kadee. Otherwise I don't have any problems with any of the cars, even the big Amtrak Superliners. I have never had to replace any of the Walthers wheelsets.
I have one Milwaukee Super Dome and the truck-to-carbody clearances are very close. Of course, if a manufacturer takes licence to raise the bolster or clear away underbody details then a whole raft of modelers cry about not being "true" to the prototype and too toy-like! (Look at the threads on some forums about the recent Bowser Alco C-636 fuel tank/truck sideframe/body clearance!)
One of the unique features of the Super Domes were their extreme weight requiring that massive three axel truck that Walthers has reproduced extremely well. However the outside swing hangers are designed to support the carbody in such a way that there is very little clearance between the truck bolsters and the side sill of the car.
All I can suggest to you would be to use a methodical approach to locating the exact cause of your derailments using the tried-and-true methods of repeating the movements and determining if it is the trackwork or the car itself causing the problems.
You have already made several modifications that might have served to improve the conditions (or not?) but perhaps you might try placing a fiber washer to raise the carbody to allow the truck to have more lateral sway since it actually rests on 2 of the four sideframe screws that contact the lighting strips. Then you would have to use a Kadee coupler with an off-set head to compensate for the raised car floor.
Keep experimenting! Ed
24" min R may not be quite wide enough, although may be possible. I don't have those particular cars. But with other Walthers cars, I've encountered the screw heads on top of the truck that contact the contact strips that carry electricity up to lighting having raised burrs from tightening. Take a file and smooth them as they can hang up instead of sliding when the truck pivots.
Before you do that, you may want to take the trucks off and "glass" them -- put them on a plate of glass, then use a sheet of paper to try to slip its edge under each wheel. The screws I referred to above also set the truck square. You may have to loosen one or more to allow the truck to settle until it's square on all 6 ( or all 4) wheels so that the paper won't slide under any. Tighten, do the "burr check" I mentioned above then reassemble.
On your track, have you checked for side to side level? That could be another factor, especially around curves.
When the term "minimum radius" is used, operating right at the bleeding edge can be iffy with any piece of rolling stock. Best to allow a little slack, i.e. better to run them on something like 28" if they are rated at 24" minimum. There is enough variance in layout curves and assemebly tolerances that you can expect problems until everything is adjusted just right. Keep at it, they should eventually go unless they're listed as something wider than 24" min R. Then you're on your own.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
I have 12 Walthers heavyweights with 3 axle trucks and they are now to the place where they run good on our club layout which is far from perfect. I have done most of the things you mentioned except for replacing the wheels. On the wheels you need to also check the gauge. I have found that cars seem to run best if the wheels and the NMRA gauge have a little slop. In other words, the wheels should fall in the middle of the gauge slots. If the wheels are at the widest the gauge allows, it might explain the problem with the curved turnout.
Besides what you have mentioned, I have loosed the truck screw so that there is a little more freedom of truck movement. I have slightly filed the corner of some of the trucks so that they do not bump on the back of the stairs. I then painted the metal on the filed corners to match the rest of the trucks.
I discovered that not every car needs every one of the tweaks that have been mentioned.
I'm having some problems with Walthers superdome coaches, okay alot of problems I have a 25' x 17' layout I'm building and if I can get one to make two circuts without derailing I'm doing well. My minimum radius on the passenger line is 24" which they boast these cars will run on. They don't seem to like curved turnouts (Walthers #7) at all. Things I've done so far that haven't worked. 1 checked my trackwork. 2 replaced the wheels with Intermountain 36" wheels. 3 Trimmed away part of the frame to allow the trucks to turn tighter. 4 Trimmed off the brake shoes where they were dragging on the underbody. 5 Installed a longer shank Kadee coupler. Am I missing something here? At 60 bucks a pop you shouldn't have to do ANYTHING to these coaches. I don't care for the wheels. The couplers are Kadee wanabees. I'm not having problems with the 4 axle coaches, but I have a shelf full of Milwaukee Road Heavyweights which I'm begging to feel is money best spent elsewhere. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Wayne