Hi, Well over the weekend, I did some running on an NTrak layout. My buddy was having issues with some of his box cars tracking well because they seem to be too light. I was running mostly heavy passenger stuff, but have had similar issues in the past. I plan on setting up a test N Trak layout 8'x20' to pretest rolling stock before the next show. But while everyone says add weight, I have not ever heard how much and the best practices for adding weight. I am afraid I may go off the deep end and add 3 ounce ingots of stainless steel over each axle. Any help will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
I use the NMRA recommended practice on this one as my guide. We have a kitchen scale at the club, so I measure the length of the car with a ruler, weigh the car, and then add weight as needed. If I get within about 1/10 oz. I figure good enough. Given the choice, I make the cars slightly overweight instead of slightly under-weight.
Two things I would ask someone to do before adding weight. One: Go back and look at your track work. Make sure the joints are nice and clean and the track is properly gauged. Two: Make sure your wheels are properly gauged. If everything checks out and you still feel you need to add weight then keep it within the NMRA guidelines. Remember more weight means more drag and to much weight can be responsible for spreading or narrowing your wheels causing them to go out of gauge. Most train cars are delivered and weighted correctly for the car. To often I hear the patent answer, "Add weight" to a troublesome car. Wrong approach. Try the above recommendations first. Most likely you will find the problem is one, the other or both. Let "Add Weight" be the last thing you do. And... have fun!
Once you have made sure there are no trackwork problems, the four most important things you can do for smooth operation are proper wheel gauge, truck swivel (tighten the screw all the way down and then back it off 1/2 to 3/4 of a turn), correct coupler height and proper weight. NMRA guidelines are recomended. Light cars will cause many problems. You can get stick on strip weights at you local auto parts store. They are three ounce and come singley or thirty or sixty per box. They will run you about 75 cents each. Remember to clean the mounting surface before you attach the weight or it will come loose with time. These simple fixes will cure 99% of operational headaches.
Hi Rick, Well my track work is really good and so is that of the club. I have switched all my wheels to Fox Valley metal wheels and they are 99.99% perfectly in gauge. The problem is really cars that are too light. Some of the ones I have seen problems with ate the Reb Cabbose Opera Window and other of the center post flat cars. There have also been problems with IM ATSF steel refer cars. I have a jewelers type of scale that is very accurate, and in many cases the cars are pretty close to the NMRA and they still have issues (pretty close means a couple of thousandths of an ounce). I can add resin loads to the flat cars, I have a lot of the Hay Brother loads, and that can help. But I may need to add weight to some box cars and covered hoppers etc. What is the best thing to use for the additional weight? Thanks!
Hey Dave, Now I have a better understanding. IM reefer cars and the others you mentioned have wheel set problems. Let's back up to Alcos4Ever's post. He covered an issue I missed. He also recommended a type of weight that works. You can also buy stick on weights through your local hobby shop. You won't believe me when I tell you this. I have a box of bolts and nuts. I weigh them and add the right number of bolts or nuts securing them with "Gap Filling" cyanoacrylate. Real professional...right? My IM reefers, not all but some, rock and roll as they roll along the right of way. To correct this problem I plan on switching out to Micro-Trains trucks and lowering the car down. Body mount the couplers and this should erase any problems I'm now having with them. The others you mentioned may need the same treatment and...yep I just might redirect and add...a little weight. Just let the weight be the last step you take...grin! The Fox Valley Metal wheels, I have no personal experience with. Others here on line sware by them and I trust those, who have testified to such. They are superb in quality and you should see added weight where it counts (in the trucks) and smoother running. Yep, some of these more specialized cars can be a combination of heart burn, chest pain and a nitro quick headache.
IM Reefers That would be a problem. Most of mine weighed out at 1 oz per car which is the weight I'm comfortable with. Taking from what we've already said, If you switch out the trucks to Fox Valley with metal wheels you'd have the added weight you need and where it belongs...in the trucks. That should work!
I use NMRA standards as basic guideline. Proper weighting for a 40' N scale car, according to NMRA would be .95 ounces; .5 ounces plus .15 oz per inch (a 40' car is nearly 3"). .95 ounces is about 26 grams. Each manufacturer weights their cars differently, some are properly weighted, some are light. I'm yet to find one that reaches or exceeds NMRA standard. I prefer a little extra weight and I've found there is no cheaper method of adding car weight than glueing pennies to the floor directly over the axles. Pennies weigh 2.5 grams. For a 40' box car I typically add three to four pennies, enough to get it just over an ounce. Works great. This doesn't work so good though for hoppers or tank cars because it you can't get the pennies directly over the axle and it raises the center of gravity which makes the cars unstable on curves. When I need even more weight, I've glued 1/4-20 hex nuts to the floors. They weigh around 6 grams each; they work really well in 57' reefers, 60' auto box cars, and passenger cars. And at around 8 cents each, they're much cheaper than lead.
I use mostly lead, but like others, I try to hit NMRA standards, roughly 1 oz for a 40' box, a tad more for 50 (though many of those I've weighted to just 1 oz and they work fine). I find that most newer rolling stock is much closer to NMRA weight that some older stuff; open hoppers tend to be notoriously underweight, because there's nothing but the frame (and not much of that) to provide it. So on those I often add some tungsten putty down deep in the hopper bays to get a bit more weight in the car. John C.
Adding metal wheel sets will add the necessary weight to conform most cars to the NMRA standard. On hoppers, you can either make loads for them or purchase commercial loads for each car. That will get the weight of the hopper up to NMRA standards.
Adding weight by RP20.1 has always been a touchy subject especially among modern modelers.Many(and I agree) thinks RP20.1 is unrealistic and outdated for modern cars since modern cars vary in length..A 73 foot center beam will weigh more the a 50 or 53 foot boxcar or 42 foot steel coil car. One of the paths to derailment free operation is metal wheels since metal wheels put the weight on the rail. However-and I am a strong believer in this-weight and metal wheels should never be the answer for shoddy track work. As a closing thought.. While many advocates adding weight to cars there is a trade off.. Your locomotives will not pull as many cars with the added weight . Personal thought..I have often wonder if some of the complaints about this or that engine will only pull 7 cars if those cars are weigh to RP20.1.
To be clear, I wasn't recommending RP 20.1 as a cure-all, but all too often I see people worry about trackwork and turnouts at our club's layout when some car consistently derails, and so often if you get out the NMRA gauge and check the wheels, check the coupler heights, and check the weight the car is way off on all points. I consider RP 20.1 to be a recommendation, but just like any other set of empirically derived rules and standards, one has to take into account the situation at hand to see whether it makes any sense. One of the key things I look for is whether a car wobbles noticeably. When it does, it's often a sign of being underweight. Stock cars are notorious for this. So are some of the lower-rung Atlas TOFC cars. Most of my Red Caboose centerbeams are, according to the RP, technically underweight, but they seem to run just fine. I tend to run them a little bit like the prototype railroads. They'd almost never line up 20 or 30 empty centerbeams right in front of several very heavily loaded cars and then proceed along ol' Curvy Pass that way. You can hide some weights in your loads and then have essentially two car weights... the loaded and unloaded weights. I am outcome influenced on this one. If the cars are technically under-weight but run just fine without wobbles and excessive derailments I don't worry about bringing them up to RP 20.1 standards. Because the OP asked about weights I answered along those lines. Adam
Adam,Please take my thoughts as thoughts based on several discussions at a Prototypical Operation group I belong to and nothing more.. I do not weigh my cars unless they are extremely light then I just add enough weight to bring them up to the weight of my other cars...I still manage derailment free operation. I agree cars with couplers and trip pins at the correct height and wheels properly gauge will lead to derailment free operation.Now add smooth track work and you should have zero derailments.
The points made by Adam and Brakie, are in concurrence with my own thinking. I don't hear an argument I hear two different guys coming at the problem from two different directions. The weight for a freight or passenger car is basically relative to the need. I do hold to the standards promoted by NMRA. I don't believe in over weighting a train car. Non-productive, as a heavy car creates or adds excessive drag to any train. Let me put it this way. If you find yourself over weighting your cars you aren't looking at the real problem.
Larry, I took it as such, and your points are very valid. What I wanted to do was make it clear that I don't think RP 20.1 is a cure-all. I am trying to get people in my club to think about derailment issues a little more critically. Instead of immediately yanking on trackwork as the culprit, I like to ask why every other train going through there has no problem except for, say, someone's string of mixed boxcars and stockcars. The great thing about the NMRA gauge is that it can check track gauge and turnouts, too. We have one guy who very strictly gets all his couplers, wheels, and car-weights tuned pretty tightly and he almost NEVER has a derailment. When he does it can be attributed to something else, such as the layout getting bumped or the kind of warping of track we occasionally get on extremely hot days. I try to point to him as an example. Right now, the biggest two problems with operations in our club appear to be coupler standards and underweight cars (not just a little underweight but wobbly underweight). This is a good thread. Adam :tb-biggrin::tb-biggrin:
On the few light cars that I have had, I have gone with the NMRA standards with weight. I use a Weight Watchers type scale with a digital read out. BTW- The absolute cheapest material for weighting can be obtained at your local firearms shop or Walmart. Copper BB's. Use a water based glue and lay them in evenly. If you hear a rattle as your cars go by, just reglue.
Dave, !st off it was nice meeting you at the show. 2nd it is the layouts track work. I've had problems with derailing on that layout also. It's because of them not checking every joint on the rail. I can run the same cars on my club layout and not derail. Tell your buddy to try the cars on a different layout, then go from there. Regards,
I have some older open hoppers that were way too light. I changed over to metal wheels and the were still too light. My 1st thought was to add BB's but since I couldn't find any around the house, i ended up using some 12 gauge wire that I had scaps of. I just cut it to lenght and layed the pieces in the bottom. To hide the wire, I took some foam rubber ( the kind you can buy at Walmart for making seat cushions) and cut it to fit inside the hopper. I then shaped it with a dremel tool and spray painted it flat black. And now it looks like a coal load. The cars are now almost up to NMRA weight. Good enough for who it's for ! Craig
NMRA standards ? Sorry...but everytime I read those words I have to chuckle. Who are they to tell me, or anyone else for that matter, what "standards" my RR is or should be? A bunch of crotchity old goats sitting around and declaring themselves RR Gods? If I add to much weight to my rolling stock...are the silent running black helicopters with RR ninjas coming to reposses my layout and trains? ? Sorry again...BUT...its my RR...its MY standards!! Nuff said !! *My vent for the day...now back to your regularly scheduled reading...TY .
