I asked this question on the Atlas forum, but it closed before i could get my ans. i purchased a digital postal scale and started to weight my rolling stock. many of them are way under the standards, some are real close, only .1 or .2 oz too light. how critical is it to be exact? would it be a disservice to over weight each car a little? Paul f
Paul F, you had quite a string of answers on the Atlas Forum, too......I suggested that I would not bother with the Micro-Trains cars nor with those .1 oz underweight and concentrate on the extremely light ones.
Personally, I overweight my cars a bit. I agree with Thirdrail, in that it isn't necessary to weight the MT cars. The .2 oz. difference won't be a big deal. If you get close enough, you should be fine. The only downfall to overweighting your cars is that your engines can't pull as many. If you're trying to pull a 100 car train, this could be an issue. Otherwise, don't sweat it.
What does overweighting do to the wheel bearings? A heavier car puts more load on the pin bearings, and they might wear out. Are there any experiences concering this point? Even the praised MTL trucks sometimes have a lot of friction, for instance if running under a deluxe box car, which are weighted quite exactly after NMRA standards.
Chris; I have run many a car heavier than DIs without the problem you are facing. Are you sure something is not rubbing somewhere, perhaps you could try one car using the spacing washers. Cheers, Lenny
