I was standing about fifty feet away as two large UP diesels went screaming by accelerating a long mixed freight out of our city. What struck me as strange, was that some of the cars rolled smoothly by while others had a rather loud, clunky, clunk. My first thought was, that a lot of the old cars had flat spotted wheels.
This was not a jointed rail track.
Has anyone else observed this?
Inquiring minds would like to know. [swg] [:-^]
Lee
It doesn’t make much of a flat spot to cause a clunk. All it takes to cause a whole trainload of flattened wheels is one inept brake application.[#oops]
If a car wheel makes a clunk or thump like a kid hitting a wooden chair with a mallet it isn’t causing much damage to the rail, itself or the car’s lading. OTOH, if it sounds like a blacksmith attacking hot metal on an anvil…[|(]
(I’m surprised that the purveyors of model railroad sound haven’t come up with a nice symphony of flat wheel music.[:-^])
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - without sound effects)
Isn’t it “clunk_ity_, clunk, clunk”?
I couldn’t get spell-check’s approval for "clunkity. [:-^] [(-D]
Lee
You’re more right than wrong. I live near CSX trackage at there are always some cars with seemingly flat-spotted wheels. Most of them have “Home Shop for Repairs” tags on them too, so at least the problem is noticed. Another possibility would be a roller bearing starting to fail, but the most likely cause would be a flat spotted wheel.