I am familiar with the NMRA recommendations for car weights.
Does this also apply to passenger cars?
Hi Marvin,
Yes, NMRA RP-20.5 for car weights applies to any type of car. Since length is a factor in the formula, longer passenge cars will be heavier than the usual freight cars.
So long,
Andy
Thanks Andy. Iwasn’t sure, but this clarifies it for me.
Marv
Passenger cars definetly needed to be properly weighted.
This was discussed on another thread with Don Gibson. In HO scale, Rivorossi and IHC cars are NOTORIOUSLY LIGHT and need to be weighted. A digital food scale is a good item to have on hand.
I’m currently upgrading my Rivorossis to run with my Walthers Budd Cars based on Don’s suggestions. As for weight, I’m filling the tiny opening in the floor with BB shots and then will place narrow flat weights on the floor. The one-piece IHC passenger car interior will hide the weights.
Athearn BB cars come with weights and are reasonably close to NMRA standards of 1 ounce plus 1/2 ounce for every inch in length.
On the downside modelers can over do it and “put too much weight” in a passenger car. Be careful as you don’t want to unecessarily strain your locomotives! A ten car HO or N scale passenger train with scale 85ft. cars is going to be heavier than a 15 car freight train! Proto 2000, Kato, and Atlas motors are tough but not bullet proof!
Cheers!
The ten car passenger train is going to be as long as that 15 car frieght train over yonder. Following the law of ounces per inch I’d say that train gets really heavy… add more motive power.
I built a 34 car freight on friend’s layout once. The ground shook and the howling penetrated the walls as the engines labored to drag the whole thing over the hill. Never mind the massive club trains 50-100 cars. 10 pass. cars phooey he he.
I’ve got a heavyweight passenger train with head-end revenue cars that is 15 - 20 cars long. All cars are weighted to the recommended practice. It is HEAVY but rolls freely and is not a strain on the engine on level track. I don’t have access to a grade, but it would definitely be a different story trying to climb a hill.
The extra weight gives the whole train mass just like the real ones. There’s no sudden stops with this! The engine will keep on going. It’s a lot of fun to operate and really gets the attention at train shows.
Mark C.
All of my cars are weighted down to make it more realistic. Rice, Coffee, and anything else I can get my hands on goes inside the freight boxes. I recently ran a 39 car freight train that weighed in at 40lbs if you include the loc (which was 2.2lbs)… it was very smooth and sounded great on the track, took a 5% grade without a problem as well.
As for wieghting cars and engine I use fishing wieghts. I get the ones that are 1/4 ounce each and you can get 13 of them for only 50 cents at academy. Tire wieghts and BBs are great, but fishing weights give you the most lead for your buck. At the club we rutinely run 100+ car trains. My 2 Genesis SD70MACs with a little added weight pull them with no problem.
Always a good idea to keep a scale handy .
I mentioned on another thread that a friend overloaded a small batch of his HO freight cars with steel weights. It was evident that his Atlas locomotives were acting as if they were in a “Tractor Pull Contest” as he had to turn his control knob up high to get them to the desired 60 scale m.p.h. After that run, he removed the excess weight from the cars and noticed that his power pack wasn’t being taxed as heavily for juice! [;)]
He had been “guesstimating” car weight instead of using a scale.
Cheers![;)]
I, along with several other modelers I know, don’t follow the NMRA recommended practices in regards to weighting passenger cars. I started to go with the NMRA, but quickly discovered with longer passenger trains slight grades can cause problems. My primary concern is ensuring that my shorter head end cars are weighted sufficiently to “hold their ground” with another 16 cars behind them.
I learned to use #9 Chilled lead shot that comes in 25 pound sacks. You can weight flatcars or anything with them secured by Elmer’s Gel.
I do have a set of Walthers Heavyweights and might leave them as they are if the weight is heavy or add just a tiny bit more.
I concur with the IHC/Riverossi Passenger cars being extremly light. I would get a set of metal wheels because once you weight them down the plastic wheels might fail under the overweight.
Not to change the subject too much but what about engine weight? is there a factor in that? I’ve always wanted to ask someone.
I use the 1/2 and 1/4 oz A-Line weights with the foam, two sided tape already on them. They are a little pricey, but are easy to use, especially with the weight being stamped right into the lead.
Sperandeo, as well as anyone else not familiar with the NMRA recommended procedures, it is RP-20.1
There is no RP-20.5
Andy probably typed the wrong key accidentally. He’s one of the guys that has helped set our hobby’s standards over the years.
don’t know if anyones else does this …but I have made my own “weight ruler”…a piece of wood about the same size as a standard 12" ruler , but instead of “inch” marks it has “ounce” marks…so all you have to do is hold it up to the rolling stock & it will instantly give you the recommended weight.
Hey DBDuck,
I do the same thing with my ruler…only I went metric. I converted over to grams/centimeter, because I have acess to all kinds of interesting balances but they’re grams-only…
Dbduck that is a great idea, all these years and it never occured to me, goes to show one can always learn something. Thanks