I have two sets of these 5-unit articulated spine cars (intermodel units carrying trailers), and since I’m about to invest quite a bit in metal wheels for them, I’m wondering about adding weight to them.
Obviously the metal wheels will add some, but will it be enough? Already they’re so light that they often derail on switches and minor track imperfections, bouncing up and derailing, and they’re prone to derailing when being shoved around a curve.
None of these problems would (or do) happen with properly weighted rolling stock, so my question is: Is there a way to add weight to these cars or should I just get some better-quality equipment?
The only way that I can see to add weight is to put weighted trailers on top. But that would just add top-heavy-ness and make the problem worse!
We’re in same perdicament, except I have a 89’ flat in question. I don’t know how those Impacks go together, but maybe if you disassemble them you might find some spots to jam in some pieces of lead sheet.
PPW/Aline’s page has some, but shop around for lower prices (it’s expensive): http://ppw-aline.com/weights.htm They have a kit for my car, but I’d only buy one and try to make casts (to make more for myself in the future) to save money. Strangely enough, it’s cheaper to buy the whole car with the weights rather than just get the weights seperately.
P.S. Where’d you get the trailers? I need a pair of 40’ ones.
If I remember correctly, if you remove the 2 screws that hold the center cover on the bottom of the car and expose the center beam of the car, you’ll find a hollow area. You could glue some lead shot inside the beam and reinstall the cover.
Similar to what I did with large diameter solder (without flux core). I pressed it square, cut it to length, and slipped it into the cavity you mention. I picked up several of the older cars when Athearn first introduced them and they had a roll resistance problem. When I ironed that out, they track pretty well, but not as good as my Walthers spine cars with the cast metal center sill.
Yes, there is a small cavity in there that I could put weight. I will try putting solder or other weight (solder sounds good since it is readily available and should yield high weight while filling the whole space) in there. I will be using ExactRail 28" metal wheels, with the truck frames tuned with one of those little truck tuner gadgets (I cannot recall the name of it right now) to get it to track smoothly.
Vincent: The SSW trailer in the foreground is an Athearn one, and the one behind (I also have two more, one a BN [;)]) is a Con Cor. Both are pretty old, I found them at two different train shows after a long search for trailers of any kind.
The two Impack sets I have (Athearn) already had a metal weight in the spine and metal wheels – there was no way to add more weight oehter than putting trailers on them. But I could pull them empty with no problems at all if they were at the back of the train.
Replacing the wheelsets, if yours really are plastic, will be difficult because they are only 28 inch wheels and very hard to find.
