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Reasons for Derailments on "Bullet Proof" Track Work

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 5:18 PM

UPDATE: I did two things to try and narrow down the problem.

First, I ran the problem PA loco in reverse several times over the section of track in question. No problem. But, it cannot get through without derailing in the forward position.

Second, I took some photos of both PAs. I have to say, it just feels funny to reposition the problem PA when I grasp the truck. Anyhow, here is the good PA front truck.

P1020508.jpg

The top of the truck appears to be level with the bottom of the shell. In the next photo, the problem truck appears to sag toward the front of the loco. Notice the missing part? It fell off during testing, but I doubt that has anything to do with the problem.

P1020509.jpg

I haven't yet the other tests that Sheldon has suggested, but I will and I will report back. Any thoughts on these photos?

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 5:27 PM

Is replacing the truck an option here? The Proto 2000 PA has been discontinued for a long time, but are there sources for replacement parts?

Rich

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 5:53 PM

Rich, you may have a warped truck frame, I may have spare. I have five powered Proto PA's and some spare parts.

It does look to me like the loco with the problem is not sitting correctly on the truck bolster, but it could just be the camera angle.

Also, how old are these? Blue boxes or silver boxes? I don't know how much if any Walthers changed them when they released the silver box versions.

Older LifeLike production versions can be found on Ebay, usually NOS, at reasonable prices.

I will check out what I have.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 6:05 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Rich, you may have a warped truck frame, I may have spare. I have five powered Proto PA's and some spare parts.

It does look to me like the loco with the problem is not sitting correctly on the truck bolster, but it could just be the camera angle.

Also, how old are these? Blue boxes or silver boxes? I don't know how much if any Walthers changed them when they released the silver box versions.

Older LifeLike production versions can be found on Ebay, usually NOS, at reasonable prices.

I will check out what I have.

Sheldon

 

I purchased both of these locos on eBay new, or more precisely New Old Stock, about four years ago. These are blue box models. Here is a summary of each.

Life-Like Products

PROTO 2000 PA Locomotive -- ATSF #73 w/mars light & dynamic brakes

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

Walthers Part # 433-21569.

 

Life-Like Products

PROTO 2000 PA Locomotive -- ATSF #70 w/mars light & dynamic brakes

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

Walthers Part # 433-21568

 

 

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 6:10 PM

Lastspikemike

It looks as if the truck pivot point is bent backwards by a very small amount.

If you take the shell off and observe the motion of the truck does it pivot true? It does the nose of the truck dip down as it passes across straight ahead when turned for its full range?

Any chance the locomotive took a nose dive onto the floor?

 Did it ever run right for you? 

I haven't done those tests yet, but in answer to your other two questions, No and Yes.

As for taking nose dives to the floor, that has never happened with any loco on my layout, thank goodness.

As for whether it ever ran right, I keep a log for each of my locomotives in a notebook. Interestingly, or maybe not, back in December 2019, just prior to ballasting my mainlines, I tested all of my locos on the unballasted mainlines. The problem PA ran fine according to my notes. So, that adds to the mystery.

Rich

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 10:11 PM

richhotrain

 

 
ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Rich, you may have a warped truck frame, I may have spare. I have five powered Proto PA's and some spare parts.

It does look to me like the loco with the problem is not sitting correctly on the truck bolster, but it could just be the camera angle.

Also, how old are these? Blue boxes or silver boxes? I don't know how much if any Walthers changed them when they released the silver box versions.

Older LifeLike production versions can be found on Ebay, usually NOS, at reasonable prices.

I will check out what I have.

Sheldon

 

 

 

I purchased both of these locos on eBay new, or more precisely New Old Stock, about four years ago. These are blue box models. Here is a summary of each.

 

Life-Like Products

PROTO 2000 PA Locomotive -- ATSF #73 w/mars light & dynamic brakes

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

Walthers Part # 433-21569.

 

Life-Like Products

PROTO 2000 PA Locomotive -- ATSF #70 w/mars light & dynamic brakes

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

Walthers Part # 433-21568

 

 

Rich

 

OK, I took a look at one of my PA's with the shell off. First thing you need to check is the wires to the headlight bulbs, they are very close to the front gear tower.

A wire in the wrong place could be limiting the travel of the front truck.

Next, there is a cab interior with engineer control stands also tighly fitted above and around the gear tower and the light bulbs. There is a control stand above the gear tower with a small separately applied piece directly over the gear tower, that can easily fall off and jamb or limit the movement of the front truck.

The locos you have are from the 3rd release of the PA by LifeLike dated 9/98. The undecorated locos I have are from the 1st, 2nd or 3rd release, no way to tell for sure, they used the same item numbers. But the packaging suggests the 2nd or 3rd release as well. So you locos should be just like mine.

Here are some photos:

 

 

Did you install the decoders?

Hope that helps.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 11:08 PM

OK, I will take the shell off tomorrow and examine everything more closely.

I did install the decoder myself, an NCE D13SRP.

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Wednesday, December 16, 2020 11:35 PM

I brought the problem PA upstairs from the layout and place it on a white kitchen counter. Took two more photos with the camera sitting on the same surface as the loco. In the second photo, taken head on, the loco seems to be leaning distinctly to the left (to the right in the photo).

Rich

P1020510.jpg

P1020511.jpg

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 6:34 AM

OK, here is the plan this morning. Reluctant as I always am to open up a locomotive, I see no other option here. As soon as I finish my coffee and get my cat off my lap, I will get to it.

Several troubleshooting suggestions have been made by some of those following this thread, and I will go through them one by one to see if I can narrow down the problem or, hopefully, even solve it. Going into this, I feel like the problem is a warped truck. But, I also cannot dismiss the possibility of some sort of interference with the truck movement under the shell. My worst fear is that I will find nothing.

Rich

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 17, 2020 7:46 AM

richhotrain

OK, here is the plan this morning. Reluctant as I always am to open up a locomotive, I see no other option here. As soon as I finish my coffee and get my cat off my lap, I will get to it.

Several troubleshooting suggestions have been made by some of those following this thread, and I will go through them one by one to see if I can narrow down the problem or, hopefully, even solve it. Going into this, I feel like the problem is a warped truck. But, I also cannot dismiss the possibility of some sort of interference with the truck movement under the shell. My worst fear is that I will find nothing.

Rich

 

Well, if you end up needing a frame or a truck shell, I think I have a dummy chassis that can supply those parts.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 7:51 AM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Well, if you end up needing a frame or a truck shell, I think I have a dummy chassis that can supply those parts.

Sheldon 

Sheldon, you are too kind. I really appreciate your most generous offer. I will get back to you one way or another.

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:07 AM

OK, I took the shell off and did some investigation based upon the suggestions made in this thread.

First, here is a photo of the wiring to compare to the one that Sheldon posted.

P1020512.jpg

Pretty similar except that I do notice that the headlight wiring goes over that plastic block on mine and either thru the block or under it in Sheldon's photo.

P1020513

When I reattach the shell, I will reposition the wires that extend near the edge of the shell, as shown in that second photo.

I also took a head on photo with the shell off the chassis. It seems to sit straight and not leaning in that photo. That is reason enough to reposition the wires before reattaching the shell.

P1020514.jpg

I did the paper test, using thin parchment paper, to see if I could slide the paper under the wheels. The paper easily slid under the middle wheelset under the front truck, but I could not slide the paper under any of the other wheel sets. Could that be a problem?

I checked the lateral movement of the wheelsets, and they all seemed fine to me. I had previously watched a Joe Fugate YouTube video where he illustrated lateral movement, too much, too little, and just right.

Lastly, I took the loco back down to the layout and ran it several times over the trouble spot where no other locos fail to make it through. It looks good to me, but I am going to re-lay that section of track just in case. That said, with the shell off, I got a much better look at the truck movement. It may be a wheel gauge issue or a lateral movement issue, but the loco derailed every time at that spot.

Thoughts?

Rich

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Posted by rrinker on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:08 AM

 Looks like a few parts came off - front brake cylinder, ladder in the middle, and the rear of the two grabs alongside the door is out of its hole in the top. Definitely looks like a leaner there. Unless you pinched a wire under the cab interior, interfering with the truck clip, it's probably a warped truck like Sheldon said.

 As far as car weight - I sometimes wonder how off it has to get to cause problems. I believe the club layout has 28" radius curves at the ends. My cars for the most part tend to run on the heavy side, especially the hoppers with loads - I have a bunch of cast hydrocal coal loads which take a way too light 55 ton Accurail hopper and make it well over the NMRA recommended weight. My usual train has cars blocked in an order that would make sense for what my train is supposed to be. That measn there may be a few of those heavy hoppers near the head end, some lighter cars, and more hoppers on the tail - perfect recipe for stringlining, you'd think. But even deliberate mishandling has never pulled anything off to the inside of a curve. Despite being made up of interconnected modular sections, there generally are few issues. Every once in a while, on truck on one car of someone's train will derail somewhere, but never always the same place, and that's one derailmment on one car out of 4-6 trains running at the same time for hours at a time. I'd call that about as bulletproof as it gets. Maybe even five 9s level reliability that if you start a train with everything properly on the rails and try to make one lap of the layout, there's a 99.999% chance you will make it without a derailment. That's on the biggest configuration, I've not been to shows where less than the full length is set up. And now they built some new end pieces to make the whole thing wider - unfortunately one of the places we run the whole thing will not handle the increased width - at the Railroad Museum in Strasburg. The platform widths just about handle the standard width - we can go as long as we like, down between two rows of locos.

Edit: You posted while I was typing. I'd suspect something with the wires going over the top of the block, but if it still derails with the shell off then it's not that the shell pinches the wires and pushes anything down where it shouldn't. 

                                       --Randy


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:22 AM

rrinker

 Looks like a few parts came off - front brake cylinder, ladder in the middle, and the rear of the two grabs alongside the door is out of its hole in the top. Definitely looks like a leaner there. Unless you pinched a wire under the cab interior, interfering with the truck clip, it's probably a warped truck like Sheldon said.

Randy, thanks for that reply. I need to re-read it to let it all sink in.

Regarding the loose or missing parts, that front brake cylinder came off during derailment testing. I set it aside to be put back on the truck later.

I am not sure what you are referring to as to the "ladder in the middle, and the rear of the two grabs alongside the door is out of its hole in the top". I don't see what you are referring to with those two parts. Can you help me out there?

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:44 AM

A couple of better photos than I previously posted. A photographer, I ain't. I always have problems with lighting.

Rich

P1020520.jpg

P1020522.jpg

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:49 AM

Lastspikemike

The two photos of your locomotive show a different installation of the vertical handrails. In the earlier photo The hand rails were installed incorrectly, left to right, leading to the reversed installation into the step at the bottom. The later photo shows these handrails now correctly installed left and right, into the step at the bottom.  We can assume the ladder was removed between the photo events and is now reinstalled correctly.  

OK, let me clarify what is happening with the long vertical handrails on either side of the door. Those handrails are factory installed, and they were not glue correctly, if at all, at the bottom of the handrails. They constantly come out of position.

A fix is on my To Do List, but I need to set aside some time to carefully apply a spot of glue at the bottom of each handrail. I hate those tiny spots of glue because they are so difficult to conceal.

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:31 AM

I have convinced myself that the front truck is warped. It troubles me that I can slip a piece of paper under the middle wheelset on the front truck. Is there a fix for this?

Rich

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Posted by snjroy on Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:47 AM

Hi. I recently bought a LL proto 1000 loco and it too had a derailment issue. I then noticed that the wheels were not all touching the track flatly. I put the loco on its back and removed the truck gear cover. I then noticed that the metal sideframes in the truck were not parallel, causing one of the wheel axles to "sink" between the sideframes. I fixed it by gently prying back the sideframes in order to prevent the axles from sinking. I haven't run the loco much since then - it worked for a couple of feet on track - I still need to install a decoder in it. But maybe you have a similar problem with yours. I had that issue with another LL loco, which I fixed with a few washers to prevent the bearing from falling through. Tried that on the newer LL loco, but it did not work. Prying the metal sideframes gently worked as I described above, but it needs to go through the longer mileage test...

Simon

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:59 AM

Good points, Simon. Thank you. I will pop off the axle cover and check it all out.

Rich

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Posted by Doughless on Thursday, December 17, 2020 3:53 PM

Rich, have you removed the truck?  Have you ever removed the truck?

The tilt and odd sitting looks like when a worm gear cover comes loose, and the trucks bolster pin comes out of the hole in the frame. 

Or, maybe there is a piece of debris caught between the bolster and the frame.

- Douglas

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 4:19 PM

Doughless

Rich, have you removed the truck?  Have you ever removed the truck?

No, I have never removed the truck.

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 7:05 PM

That sheet was included in the box, but I appreciate your posting it. If I decide to fiddle with the middle wheelset on that front truck, I am going to have to at least partially disassemble the truck.

Rich

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 17, 2020 7:17 PM

Well, finally got this site working again.

Rich, I will take apart the dummy chassis I have and look at the trucks. I have had them apart before but it was years ago.

If your truck frame is bad you are welcome to one of these, they should be the same. You will have to switch over all your drive line parts.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by gmpullman on Thursday, December 17, 2020 8:35 PM

Disassembled parts:

 LifeLike_PA-parts2 by Edmund, on Flickr

Bolster pin on body frame. Check for a smooth surface around pin:

 LifeLike_PA-bolster by Edmund, on Flickr

Mating hole on truck bolster. Check for smoothness here:

 LifeLike_PA-truck by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 17, 2020 9:05 PM

Thanks Ed, this site has not worked for me today.

Sheldon

    

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Posted by gmpullman on Thursday, December 17, 2020 9:19 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL
Thanks Ed, this site has not worked for me today.

I'm still working around some bugs, too, Sheldon.

Those Life-Like locomotives were built like tanks (or maybe Model Ts) you could strip them down, clean up the parts, tune up the drive line, lightly lube the moving parts and you'd be good for another million miles.

I just picked up another GP30 and an E8, brand new, still in shrink wrap. I stripped them both down and checked them over from the flanges-up. They are both running like satin wrapped in silk! While the trucks are apart I directly solder a pickup wire to the bronze strip that contacts the axle, just for insurance:

 Truck-wire by Edmund, on Flickr

Note the heat-shrink as a strain relief. Super flexible silicone insulation, too.

I hope Rich gets to the bottom of his dilemma Yes

Good Luck, Ed

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Posted by ATLANTIC CENTRAL on Thursday, December 17, 2020 9:34 PM

Yes, I'm the same way, still buying NOS Proto2000 stuff too. I model 1954 so a pair of SD9's are my newest motive power.

Lots of FA's, PA's, GP7's, BL2's, E units, a few switchers, they are a great.

I'm getting that error if I try to include a quote?

Sheldon

    

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:25 PM

Thanks for posting those photos, Ed. That really gives me a visual of the diassambled truck.

I suspect that the middle wheelset on the front truck may be the problem in that it sits just slightly higher than the lead or trailing wheelset. It is the only wheelset that I can slip a piece of paper under. But, I am not sure what I can do to lower it, and I hate to take apart the truck without knowing what I am doing.
 
I am also still looking at the lateral movement of the front truck wheelsets as a possible cause of the tracking problem. When I run the loco over a specific section of track at slow speeds, I can clearly see the front truck not tracking properly as it lifts off the track. As I run other locos over that same section of track, I see no unusual vertical lifting or horizontal shifting of the wheelsets. 
 
In the morning, I plan to re-do about a 4 foot section of track just to see what happens. I will report back.
 
Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Thursday, December 17, 2020 11:35 PM

ATLANTIC CENTRAL

Well, finally got this site working again.

Rich, I will take apart the dummy chassis I have and look at the trucks. I have had them apart before but it was years ago.

If your truck frame is bad you are welcome to one of these, they should be the same. You will have to switch over all your drive line parts.

Sheldon 

Thanks, Sheldon. I sent you an email.

Rich

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Posted by gmpullman on Friday, December 18, 2020 5:05 AM

richhotrain
I suspect that the middle wheelset on the front truck may be the problem in that it sits just slightly higher than the lead or trailing wheelset.

If that's the case you should be able to spot right away if one of the "journals" is not engaged in the metal bearing strip on the inside of the truck sideframe:

 LifeLike_PA-truck-metal by Edmund, on Flickr

If you decide to disassemble the truck (you don't have to remove the shell to do this) you will disengage each of the four "latches" at each end of the side frames:

 LifeLike_PA-truck-clip by Edmund, on Flickr

Once these have been disengaged and tucked under the gear cover you can carefully pry up on the cover. Do not try to remove the truck side frames without first removing the bottom cover.

 LifeLike_PA-truck-undo by Edmund, on Flickr

There are four square pins that engage the tabs (eyes) on the side frames which hold them in place. These pins are easily broken.

Good Luck, Ed

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