Last night I did my first locomotive run and thankfully the wiring was all okay. However, my Amtrak Superliner cars start derailing when they are coming OFF the viaduct. After careful analysis, I found that the bottom of the Amtrak passenger cars was touching the tip of the rail at the joint portion and caused a derailment (or everything is stuck if its lower speeds). Should I just file that part of the track down or should I file the bottom of the car or what should I do? Any suggestions? I will post some pictures soon.
It sounds like the track coming of your viaduct is at too steep a grade, causing the cars to bottom out. I’m guessing there is a rail joint there and the track is kinda sticking up??
I’d try raising the track coming off the viaduct with shims and see if that helps…maybe get a level and check the grade.
Based on the pictures in your blog the problem is that you have a vertical kink in the viaduct.
Don’t have a clue how to use Kato track, so I can’t help you there, but the problem is that the transition between the grade and the level portion of the viaduct is too abrupt.
If the track you are using has the plastic “ballast” on it, you have just found one of the problems with it…you can’t form a vertical transition into a grade, nor out of one. You have a high-centering problem that is not going to be solved by grinding down the rails…that will just ruin a perfectly good piece of track.
You will have to take up and relay the trackage going over this area, and perhaps straighten out the roadbed on which the track rests (ideal), or use a section of flextrack and try to form a transition, or more rounded section, where it will do the most good for you. If the fix involves tearing out the viaduct and realigning the grade, do it. Do yourself a favour and move around and beyond this opportunity to learn a good lesson by pondering your next move and then actively fixing the problem. It will require a stout heart, maybe even a tear, but it must be done. Once you have it fixed, you will know, and you will actually be able to laugh about this in a few months…or years. [:)]
That’s a pretty drastic bump you’ve got there. Your probably going to have to lower that end of your viaduct a little and raise a few sections of that turn to smooth it out. You’ll find there’s a lot of things in this hobby that are “supposed” to work, but don’t. Hopefully those piers come off EZ for modification. Do your longest locos have the same problem in that spot?
Thanks for the excellent post. This is going to be challenging and I am feeling up to it. It should be fun solving this problem because if I could just lay KATO track and say DONE then this hobby would not be interesting or challenging, thereby taking all the fun out of it
Will keep you posted, you can also check out my blog.
I have finally actually gone to see your pictures…sorry for making assumptions earlier.
If my eyes tell me correctly based on what your images show them, you are in need of more support between the piers. Everything is “purple”, so I find it difficult to tell what is track and what is viaduct. But the viaduct portion below the track is insufficiently supported between the piers. Either that, or the viaduct horizontal component is warped or bent vertically.
Your filing and grinding solution is not what is required here. What you must do is to glue the pier to the viaduct roadbed so that it is level. Thereafter, your rails should meet properly enough to obviate the filing and grinding.
Again, it appears in the image as if the left component of the viaduct roadbed has sagged or bent. Naturally, the rails don’t meet level as a result, and you have the bump. Find a way to level the viaduct’s horizontal component and your rail issues will be solved.
Edit- I have had a second look and I think I have a solution for you. Leave the viaduct alone, except the section preceding the ramp should be lowered about 4 mm at the pier where the ramp starts. This should reduce the bump considerably. So, you will have to cut the bottom of the pier a bit to reduce its supportiing height. Now you have something more closely approximating a transition curve. I hope I haven’t confused you.
From the pictures on your Blog, I can see what your problem IS, but I can’t tell WHY, or suggest HOW to fix it. Try to get a pic ot two half-way between the two you have, Close enough to see more detail, but not so close you can’t see surrounding tracks and approaches.
Without the extra details, it looks to me that the other end of the Viaduct is fine. Did you maybe “miss”, or “forget” one of the “pier steps”, Example; Instead of:
1 2 3 4 5 5 5 5 5 4 3 2 1 you may have 1 2 3 4 5 5 5 5 5 3 3 2 1 ???
Not to take anything away from selector, (he has much more experience than I) his recommendation is correct. Rather than CUTTING the bottom of the pier away and possibly cutting away to much, I would put a sheet of fairly coarse sandpaper flat on your bench and rub the pier on it to sand a little away at a time and keep checking continuously until you get a consistently level grade. Do this to as many piers as is required to get a consistant grade. This is what I ended up doing at the top of a grade where I transitioned onto a bridge with Flex Track and kept loseing my Micro Trains coupler equiped passenger cars. Of course, I learned this lesson after TWICE CUTTING away to much material on the approach and replacing about 14" of track, roadbed and support. The third time, I took the sandpaper route and it worked like a charm. [banghead] Now, if I just have a little bit of material to remove, I get out a piece of sandpaper or a small file. It takes a little longer, but I only have to do it ONCE.
The placement of the piers is critical, but they are designed to work properly only if they’re placed on a perfectly flat surface (I didn’t think of this earlier because it’s been a long time since I’ve used them). If you sit the pier on a high or low spot in the foam, the high or low spot will also be at the top of the pier, making a wavy or kinked section of track. You should be able to check this with a simple straight edge (like a ruler set on edge) long enough to span past at least 3 of the piers.
I drew some lines here.
Red area needs to come down. It’s foam. You can probably push it into the foam a little to lower it. If not, sand the bottom of the pier, but just a little at a time.
Green needs to come up. Try a piece of card board or something similar under the bottom.
Yellow- I can’t see a pier there, but I’m assuming there is one. Raise it the same way with the card board under the pier.
Blue circle-I bet your having the same problems there from the looks of the picture.
Your not going to fix this by just fixing the one bad spot. You need to do it gradually on each side of that spot.
Now for the bad news…Did you peel the clear cellophane off your pink foam before you laid your track?? (doesn’t look like it) You really need to peel that off. Paint, plaster and glue don’t like to stick to that stuff.
If it were me, loathar, I would do most of what you suggest, but I would reduce the pier to the right of the one you have in green, the one with the pink line at its foot. Let’s face it, the ramp where the big grade begins abruptly in the foreground, and all the way down to the bottom, is hugely problematic for the reason that it is really very steep and because of that hump. If he could reduce that one pier by just a few mm, it would help tremendously.
I hadn’t noticed the back hump, but you are perfectly correct. Also, I failed to notice the sheen from the plastic until you pointed it out…good catch.
From what I’m seeing in the picture as loathar & selector are pointing out, they are correct in that the grades in that area are not right. Either the piers are out of place, or there is a high spot in the benchwork where the pier marked in green is. The green marked pier is nearly right over a benchwork leg that could be causing a high spot. I checked the grades on the Xtrkcad plan, and based on the 23-015 and 23-016 piers that grade should be around 2% to 2.5%, but the area after the green marked pier looks a lot steeper.
With the right combo/order of piers, no contributing irregularities like from the benchwork (and maybe even the floor under the benchwork), with a bit of sanding and shimming those grades should be fine-tuneable to closer to 2%…at least on paper/screen, based on Xtrkcad’s grade calculations.
This is true for these spots. It also appears that the viaduct sections are sagging. This is compounding the problem of no transition. I don’t know if this material is flexable enough to over bend to gain some up easing or overeasing transition and add some new supports. The set was never designed to change grade and allow clearance for such a long low slung piece of equipment.
Straight sections just willnot change elevation w/o some curved easements. I can’t figure out why these type of sections weren’t available for this viaduct set.
I am surprised that these cars would stay coupled. Usually very long cars with excessive truck to coupler overhang, are the most sensitive to vertical transitions.
