No spring, is that 'normal'?

[jacon12]

In another thread I was trying to figure out why my BLI Class A 2-6-6-4 was derailing so much, especially on turnouts..

Today I took the front trucks off and saw that there was no spring to help keep the it on the track, and I was wondering if the absence of them was normal construction of a model.


the truck is held in place by a screw in the hole at the red arrow..

As you can imagine any little bump at all will bounce the trucks off the track so I'm wondering if maybe I place some type weight on them it might help.
As a side note, it runs great through ALL turnouts without the trucks on.
Jarrell

[tstage]

As Arte Johnson used to say on Laugh-in, "Ver-r-r-r-rdy int-rest-ing..."

Jarrell, as always, the pics you provide are a great help to see more clearly what you're talking about. Since I don't have any BLI steam in my roster, I can't tell you if a "non-spring" leading truck is "normal" or not. My guess is that more weight over the leading trucks is probably what you'll have to do.

Tom

[orsonroy]

Most brass steam is built without a lead truck spring. The old blacksmiths of the hobby will tell you that a spring on a front truck is a sign of bad design. The new P2K Berks come without a lead truck spring too, and it was sort of a shock to see! (only my brass is that way; ALL my plastic and pot metal steam have front springs)

Sometimes a spring is good, sometimes it's bad. Just like real steam, model steam has it's own personality, and derailing trucks is one of the more common quirks. And it doesn't have any ONE solution. Sometimes you have to rework the track, sometimes you have to remove the spring, sometimes you have to ADD a spring, and sometimes you have to add weight to the truck. It's a frustrating but relatively simple fix.

MY problem children are my Pacifics: I love 4-6-2s, but NONE of them like to track well (Athearn, brass, Bowser or Mantua). My ten-wheelers and Hudson do just fine...

[BRAKIE]

I am hesitant in passing this tidbit along..In the by gone era when we was bailing wire modelers we would add a spring to the lead truck or add a very small piece of flat lead to the lead truck as added weight...This seem to cure the pony trucks derailment problem.

[Anonymous]

Jarrell,

What does the schematic show????

[Anonymous]

Weight may help the problem; however, have you checked the gauge of the wheel set of the front truck? Are the flanges in gauge, or are they too wide and picking points and frogs? Actually the proper weight on the front truck should keep it on track just from the taper of the wheel tread.
Will

[howmus]

Jarrell, I would take a guess that the front truck is somehow binding as it turns. That particular frog may make it catch somehow and derail. I have had that happen on a couple of locos. Real pain (as you know) to figure out exactly where that problem is. Make sure that there are no burrs or anything that prevents the truck from moving freely from side to side and add some graphite where the truck pivots on the loco. On one loco that had a spring, the solution was to remove the spring (it was making the truck bind when it moved to the right). The added weight may help. I would try putting some inside the bottom of the truck so that it does not touch anything that has to move.

[selector]

One other thing, Jarrell. Your first pic seems to show a ridge on the flat running surfaces of the closer wheel. Or is it just discolouration?

Ray's suggestion seems like a distinct possibility, too. Good thinking.

[loathar]

I'd say try some weight on it. This helped my old Tyco 2-8-0 from derailing. I think Tyco later took the front wheels off to stop the problem making it an 0-8-0. (that's some top notch engineering for you, huh?)

[SpaceMouse]

Work the turnouts before you work the engine.

I have all kinds of wierd steamers on my layout. Among them there was one or another that could not make this or that turnout. Every tunout needed to be tuned. It took weeks to get the layuot working, but now derails are extremely rare. Deisels track much better.

With steamers the track has to be much better than with deisels. Trackwork and Lineside Details explains how to tune your track.

[jacon12]

I appreciate the suggestions. Tomorrow, if I can find a flat washer that will fit the space I think I'll try placing it there maybe with double sided tape for a temporary fix and see if that helps. If it does I'll fix it in a more permanent fashion. If that doesn't work I'll see what I can do with the turnout, although this is happening on some places not related to turnouts also. I need to get a track guage, I dont have one yet. The idea keeps coming up in the back of my mind that it's happening because I have the track down in a temporary fashion, no soldered joints, no roadbed yet. So, I'm thinking that because Steamers are a little finicky that it is finding little places that I can hardly see. What I need to do is stop worrying about it, get the darned track plan done, get the track laid correctly and see what happens.
Does that sound like a plan?
Loathar, that really is some fine engineering. I got a good chuckle outta that. Thats what I'm presently doing, running it without the lead truck. Works like a dream now.
Jarrell

[Eriediamond]

I see what selector sees, I believe. It looks like the wheel flange didn't didn't get enough material in the mould when the wheel was moulded. The second picture with the truck right side up, tells a story though. From the appearance of the truck frame just ahead of the hole for the mounting screw is a square with a small pin moulded on the near or right side of it. This tells me that there was a spring engineered into during the design stages. Not a wire wound spring, but maybe a flat brass type that was held in place by the moulded in pin. Like Trainnut asked, do you have a schematic or parts breakdown for this loco? Just like the others here, try adding weight. Front trucks on steam locos have a problem in that by design, they do not want to track straight like the trailing truck does, because the pivot point is behind the axle, so that it is always running one flange or the other against the rails. I'd bet that it wouldn't derail backing through that turnout. To help understand what I'm trying to say here, hitch a trailer behind your car and see how far you can backup without the trailer going to one side. That loco is doing the same thing as that trailer. Hope this helps, Ken

[oleirish]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jacon12

I appreciate the suggestions. Tomorrow, if I can find a flat washer that will fit the space I think I'll try placing it there maybe with double sided tape for a temporary fix and see if that helps. If it does I'll fix it in a more permanent fashion. If that doesn't work I'll see what I can do with the turnout, although this is happening on some places not related to turnouts also. I need to get a track guage, I dont have one yet. The idea keeps coming up in the back of my mind that it's happening because I have the track down in a temporary fashion, no soldered joints, no roadbed yet. So, I'm thinking that because Steamers are a little finicky that it is finding little places that I can hardly see. What I need to do is stop worrying about it, get the darned track plan done, get the track laid correctly and see what happens.
Does that sound like a plan?
Loathar, that really is some fine engineering. I got a good chuckle outta that. Thats what I'm presently doing, running it without the lead truck. Works like a dream now.
Jarrell

[^][^][^][:D][:)]Sounds like a plan to me[^]
JIM

[rrinker]

I do as suggested, clean up the mating surfaces a bit. ALso check the wheels for proper gauge. I know Mouse says to check the turnouts, but at least with my Atlas Custom Line Code 83, EVERY time a car has shown odd behavior at the frog, it has been proven to be an out of gauge wheel. My father in law has about 20 hoppers on the layout right now, all Bachmann Silver Series. I ran the train around and about half of them bounced over every switch. No derailments, but they noticeable bounced. Right away he was checking the switch, I said "check the wheels". He said, no way, these are all brand new cars. Pulled out the handy NMRA gauage, lifted off the first of the bouncing cars, outer wheelset in both trucks was too tight back to back. Same as EVERY other car that exhibited this behavior. He's putting a call in to Bachmann to see what they do.

--Randy

[Tracklayer]

No!. No spring is not normal!. That would only leave us with winter, fall and summer...

I'm sorry but I couldn't resist.

Tracklayer

[twhite]

Nope, no spring. Just the normal weight of the lead truck. Take a look at pic #2 and see that nice flat space on the truck over the wheel. Now take some flat lead and CA it to the flat plate. Not much, just a little. It's what a lot of us guys with brass locos do when we have too light a front truck. Adds weight, adds centering. Tends to work really well.
Tom[:D]

[Anonymous]

For what its worth, my BLI 4-8-2 M1a Mountain has no spring.

I agree that your photo shows a pocket for a flat spring. Were they thinking of using a spring in pre-production, and scrapped the idea? Is this truck used on another model that does use a spring?

There is some extra engineering on the front truck of my M1a, also. It may be possible that they were thinking of something to help control the truck ..... it sure just hangs there loose and light.

Jim

[loathar]

QUOTE: Originally posted by rrinker

I do as suggested, clean up the mating surfaces a bit. ALso check the wheels for proper gauge. I know Mouse says to check the turnouts, but at least with my Atlas Custom Line Code 83, EVERY time a car has shown odd behavior at the frog, it has been proven to be an out of gauge wheel. My father in law has about 20 hoppers on the layout right now, all Bachmann Silver Series. I ran the train around and about half of them bounced over every switch. No derailments, but they noticeable bounced. Right away he was checking the switch, I said "check the wheels". He said, no way, these are all brand new cars. Pulled out the handy NMRA gauage, lifted off the first of the bouncing cars, outer wheelset in both trucks was too tight back to back. Same as EVERY other car that exhibited this behavior. He's putting a call in to Bachmann to see what they do.

--Randy

Please let me know if setting the wheel gauge fixes this problem. I've been experimenting with the CVMW code 81 track and I'm getting horrable bounce and derailment at the frogs.I tried running a file in gaps of the frog to lower them but that gave me a whole new set of problems.I would love to use the CV product instead of Atlas code 83 if I could get this problem solved.
Thanks.