Problem with the search engine is if one doesn't know the heading of the original article you can get almost any and everything with Bachmann in it. I remember the subject coming up about the trucks but the problem is I don't know about what date it came up or even in what year. However I did find this link and subsequent follow up posts. http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine...on-pick-up&highlight=Bachman+passenger+trucks However there is more out there specific to these cars just can't remember the thread heading.
I have a one end staging yard....why not pull in forward and 0-5-0 the locos back to the front? Just include a re-railer section. Otherwise, lay good track, put re-railers before and after every turnout, and go slow, plus all the other stuff John listed. Should work about 85% of the time......
I just finished this quick sketch for someone else, but maybe it'll help here: You can have a section of the reverse loop (grey) hinged so it drops down out of the way when not in use. Otherwise I echo other's recommendations: back in slow, make sure all your wheels are in gauge, and make sure all the turnouts have sharp points flush to stock rails. That's a big helix!
Two things going on here: Storage limitations -- Grey One suggested a cassette system and I strongly suggest you check out that method. It has been very popular with Brit modelers who build small standalone display units for shows. Your staging area needs only to be a minimum of one track/one cassette wide by slightly more than the length of the cassette. Do search teh interwebs for "model railroad cassette staging". Nowadays some people are trying to get too fancy with the concept, making elaborate connectors where you have to lift and potentially drop the cassette. Or they make the cassettes too heavy or long and unwieldy. One or two steel pins on the layout side is all that's needed to quickly align a cassette with the layout. KISS. 2 foot long cassettes are fairly easy to manage. Loading multiple cassettes is quick enough IMHO. Obviously you want ease of handling and no flexing. You also want something to secure the one end to prevent any chance of the cars rolling off. That could be an adjustable bumper, or a pin or coupler in the trackway for an end coupler to grab. Both cassette ends are openable so you can turn the train section. If you allow live track on cassettes, you can run head in, then use a switcher or hand to load any more cassettes. Passenger train consists stay in order. Your wheeled table is going to have to be really sturdy to avoid potentially derailing however many tracks worth of cars there are. The floor will have to be very smooth like linoleum. The lifting mechanism is going to have to be just as stable. Have you got an idea for this? All you need is storage shelves for cassettes. Backing trains -- The bad actor cars include ones that are too light (empty plastic hoppers or flat cars without loads) or top heavy (covered hoppers). Weight them at least somewhere close to NMRA standards. A lot of recent cars already are factory weighted. The problem is when they're mixed with very light cars, they'll push the light cars off the track. If you're backing a steam loco, you need weight in the tender.
Thanks guys I have to run off to work so I have to make this brief. I may just have to do the cassette idea because of all other things involved. For one, I will have to remove the carpet and put down a wood floor so the wheels will roll easily and not knock over my cars. The other problem is rising it up smoothly to the layout level. The biggest problem is making a 180deg turn onto the table. I don’t have room to turn the table 90deg and there may be a little trouble get the far end of the table out from under the layout with out hitting something. So any I got to run, but I’ll probably be thinking about it at work.
Two thoughts. 1) It's not so much the degree of the curve and much more the radius. Tight sharp curves are a problem. 2) Body mount all the couplers. This way the force from the locomotive goes to the car body and not the trucks. The trucks are then free to concentrate on staying on the track. With truck mounted couplers it is very common for the truck to be pushed off the track when going around curves or through turnouts. This also applies to trains going forward but with helpers on the back.
The slight downgrade sounds like a good idea, and if you have to have a 90 degree turn, make it a generous radius, something like 19 inches or more, unless you plan on having easy access. The best thing you can do for this and many other tracking problems is to body mount all couplers, as backing cars with truck mounted couplers, especially through curves, causes side thrust on the cars, which leads to oops.
Thanks guys, I did a little Google searching for an "N-scale Staging Cassette" and didn’t find anything that was even interesting. However, I did find a very crude cassette for O-Scale that showed some real promise because it was set up as a chest of drawers for multiple cassettes. I want to do the same thing, but refine it so it’s a fraction of the weight and easier to handle. Actually the one I made 5 years ago would have put what I just saw tonight to shame. I think mine is in the very back of my wood/lumber shed piled under some 5 to 6 years of stuff. If it doesn’t rain this weekend, I’m going to pull all that stuff out and see if I can find it. The other weird thing is that I can’t even find any photos of it on Photobucket and I know I had a thread on it in which I had a lot of negative comments. But oh well! I’m getting a little excited to find it and I just hope I didn’t toss it a few years back when I rented a large trash bin to clean the place up and I think I filled it up 2 or 3 times.
Just because you have carpet doesn't mean you can't roll casters over it. There are specific casters designed for carpet, if you don't want the expense of installing hardwood or laminate.
OK I’ve been thinking a lot about this Cassette staging having access from both ends as steamghost mentioned and I think this is definitely the way to go so I don’t have to back trains at all. So if I make the cassette so that trains can enter from either direction and I need only to turn the cassette around to exit in the forward direction plus I can just leave the loco connected. I really didn’t want to remove the loco for my passenger trains because they are pretty much a set and I don’t want to interchange cars. I’ve also been thinking about the single track idea and I admit that I was a little closed minded to the idea because I already had one with 8 tracks. One of the problems I had with my old 8 track cassette was handling it. It is 4ft long and very hard to handle when it’s full. I actually only used it once just for a test run and I ended up pushing the cars on and off. I’m now planning on building a rack to slide in multiple single track cassettes. I have a couple of reverse loops on the layout so the trains can be turned around prior to going back into the cassette. Of course the freight trains are another story, but I have enough diesel engines that I could leave at least one engine in the consist all the time and add engines to it after it’s out on the main. I just have to work out Consist Engine Speed Matching on the fly like that. So this is what I’m going to do and I’m going to start designing something right away. Thanks steamghost!
