MT car weight

[Chris333]

Do Micro Trains cars run fine out of the box or do thy need some weight added?

I received my first 2 cars today and don't have the luxury of running them yet, thats why I ask

Thanks
Chris

[shamoo737]

Chris, they will run fine as it is. You dont need to add additional weight. Just loosen up the boster pin a little, and you are ready to put in the track.

[Chris333]

Thanks

Yeah I noticed the bolster pin is different than N so the truck can't spin around. Also the truck bolster is notched out for the couplers.

[HoboTim]

Micro-Trains Rollingstock Weights vary.

An average 40' boxcar weighs 7g.

An average 50' boxcar weighs 10g.

The Gunderson Husky weighs 11g empty, 19 g with containers.

I have never had any trouble with Micro-Trains rollingstock NOT having enough weight.

graemlins/223.gif Hobo Tim

[Bill_K]

Chris:

You really, really might want to think twice about adding weight to MTL cars.

First, they run very, very well as-is up to 100 car trains. Second, Z scale is not a scale of heavy locos, high tracton, or even traction tires. You could find yourself running needlessly short trains if you start adding weights to something that doesn't need weights.

Even a 2% grade in Z is a killer.

And Marlin featherweight locos can't pull nearly as much as MTL locos.

Hope this helps,
Bill

[Chris333]

I didn't add any weight, but I did think at first I need too. Having never held Z scale in my hands I thought they were light.

[ztrack]

No need to add weight. It is interesting, but sometimes being light is a good thing in Z scale. It allow for much longer trains!

Here is one trick I have found. I often run a heavier car behind the locomotives. For instance, I might use an FR coal porter, wood chip gondola, or PS2-cd hopper. Since these are nickel-silver cars, they weigh a ton. I have found this heavier car absorbs the fluctuations from the locomotives and evens out the running of the cars. I first found this to be helpfully running Pennzee hoppers since the first car would tend to derail behind the longer AZL locos. After adding the 'heavy' car, all ran well. Note, I do have one Pennzee hopper with extra weight if I just want to run three bay hoppers.

Rob Kluz