hey, i have 5 athern coal hoppers that came to my layout 10 years ago. on the new recently installed shinohara turnouts, the wheels want to ride up on the frogs and some guardrails. would some nice rp-25 wheelsets fix this problem? any thoughts would help. thx
sounds like the wheels are out of gauge. regauging them would help. Metal wheels are better though.
I have been replacing the wheel sets on my Athearn and older Roundhouse cars with metal and I see a lot of improvement. They roll a lot better and help keep the track cleaner.
Rich
They are riding up for a reason. If they are fine on other turnouts, there’s probably something about the geometry of these turnouts that’s causing a problem. But, it may be the cars, too. Check the trucks, and see that they swing freely and evenly, Do they strike any of the details or coupler pockets beneath the car? Do they remain in the same plane as they rotate, or do they tilt? Ideally, there needs to be a bit of freedom for one truck to tilt, but turning the truck should not force it to tilt.
Metal wheels will generally work better. They are heavier, so they add a bit of weight to the car, and also shift its center of gravity down, making the car more stable. However, if you’ve got old plastic wheels, the wheel flanges on the metal wheels will likely be shallower. The old “pizza cutter” wheelsets can be more forgiving of marginal trackwork, because the deep flanges will stay on the track where more-prototypical metal flanges might jump.
If those Athearn cars are only 10 years old, the wheelsets should be to RP-25. There are reasons to want metal wheels, as well as debate as to why metal wheels are overrated. But it sounds like you might have an issue where wheelset swapping will not be the cure. You should check the wheel gage as well as the track gage and guard rail clearance. You do have one of those NMRA track and wheel gages, don’t you? If not, my opinion would be to invest in one of those first.
I have a similar problem with one of my cars on one of my turns, after watching the car carefully it looked like the car wheel was missing the switch rail. So I stuck a small screwdriver under the rail and pryed it ever so slightly and it it works great now. It figured the worse that could happen was I would screw up the rail and have to replace it, which I would need to do if I was still having troubles with the car
Make sure the turnouts are level and not twisted at all. Check the gauge of the turnouts. The old Athearn hoppers are light on their toes and could do well with some added weight and metal wheels. Watch carefully and make sure the wheel is not already derailed by the time it hits the frog.
Pete