I was wondering on average how many derailments do you have on a typical operating session? I have had good luck lately, I ran two trains each about 45-50 cars long for about eight hours without a problem. I hope that is good.
I’ve got a long way to go before I would have an Op session. I run much shorter trains on my 5x12 foot layout. I still get the occasional derailment, maybe once a week. I’m usually not paying attention to the exact point where it occurs, and I know I’m running 40-year-old cars with plastic wheels to match. I still regard my track as a work in progress.
Of course, these are just the not-my-fault derailments. Unfortunately, I still experience a number of “turnout set the wrong way” problems. I’ve been able to reduce these considerably with LED turnout position indicators on the control panel.
Sounds like you have reached that elusive relationship between track and rolling stock that allows for trouble free operation. On my former NYC&E Layout derailments were extremely rare and sometimes did not occur for weeks at a time. But the first time I didn’t pay attention ,watch out, cause here comes trouble. This does not account for my man made derailments, ie switches thrown in wrong direction, a careless elbow, etc. Keep up the good work and proper track and wheel maintenance and you should continue to have trouble free operation for years to come.
After securing my track I had several derailments due to side to side unlevel track. To expidate track leveling I took a flatcar that set level, put a small circle level on the car and pushed the car by hand around the track leveling as I went. The track is original America Flyer on vinylbed roadbed which is very spongy. My derailments are now switching errors.
Jim
Quick nd easy derailment location spotting:-
method 1.
paint 45gallon drums (in your scale!) red… whenever a car jumps the track put a red barrel beside the place it fell off. Get a heap of barrels you know where to work.
method 2.
draw out the whole layout (or divisions) on at least an A3 sheet of paper (or card)… then it’s the same thing with red ink… you might also add notes if you have space.
You could refine these by working out a way of showing direction of travel…
That deals with the track…
Whenever you have a derailment it is also useful to log which car (at least appeared to) start(ed) it.
A car shows up a few times… pull it and fix it!
Hope this helps.
I can honestly say I don’t have derailments anymore. When I do its always human error due to me forgetting to throw a switch.
My track work was never the cause of a derailment problem, it was always a car at fault. Usually some problem with the trucks. Passenger cars, because of being longer seemed to be the worst offenders. But, with careful inspection, I always found the problem of why a car derailed.
I used to run trouble free, but after a major overhaul and moving my layout twice, I now have several trouble spots to deal with. I keep saying I’ll fix them…right after I do _________.
I don’t have many derailments; maybe 1-2 a year. Most occur when a switch is thrown the wrong way, or a wheelset is out of gauge.
As a newbie, I have had a number of derailments. They seem to be getting less but still get them. Great chance of derailments occur when after putting loco and cars on the track and not seating the wheels properly.
I’ve been guilty of that myself from time to time. I think I’ve got a twelve wheel loco on the track properly, everything looks good, hit the first curve and Gomez Addams strikes again.
Aside from trackwork, which is obvious cause, trucks are a big factor if your car derails. I find that fully sprung and equalized trucks are a lot better, because like the prototype they are designed to skew and track over imperfections whereas rigid trucks can tilt and have wheel jump over the rail.
Prototype cars would be derailing a lot more if they had rigid trucks too!
Only derailments I had on my old industrial switching layout was cause by human error. and not equipment.
Up until recently, we had no track problems at all, but right now, we’re laying plaster cloth and sculpting terrain, and I suspect that when the masking tape comes off, there will be clearance issues inside the tunnels.
No real worries, chisel marks inside a tunnel just take a little paint to fix.
ASIDE from geometrical ‘S’ curves, and vertical easements, I found that TURNOUTS caused most of my derailments - overly wide or deep flangeways - variance of gauge through the point rails. Wheel bounce sometimes will derail a wheel before reaching a point of derailment further down the track.
Answer was to upgrade the turnout - a practice I follow to this day. Nothing beats a properly gauged turnout, and Nothing shows you an improperly gauged one more than a piece of NEW equipment.
Due to needed manufacturing tolerances FEW turnouts meet NMRA throughout. Got a problem switch? When all else fails try a BK / Anderson, and gauge it.
Derailments?
I’m not sure, but I think I had one back in '87 or so. Problem was a twisted frame on a four-wheel freight car. Fixed it and forgot about it (until now.)
My obsessive care in laying track and adhering to prototypical speed may have something to do with it.
Chuck
This gauge thing is weird. Why do people even need to check it? I thought HO is HO and anyone who manufactures HO switch would make it in gauge, no? Same with wheels. How come I hear people say they need to check their wheels? Don’t all metal HO wheels in gauge? Really, I am curious, is quality control that bad in this industry?
Dima:
On operating layouts, things move around as you operate.
I started an op session season with everything in perfect guage on the wheelsets and at the end of the season several cars had developed problems.
Also it is true that some measurements, like check guage through turnouts is a single precise measurement, it cannot be a range.
MR once did an article on commercial turnouts and published their measurements. Surprise, surprise – not ONE of the commercial turnouts had the right check guage measurement as given in the NMRA standards.
First of all while HO gauge may be standard, it takes a set of inter-related wheel and track (especially turnout) dimensions for derailment-free performance to occur. When model train manufacturing began, each manufacturer set their own track and wheel standards (still is that way in G and 3 rail O).
In the 1950s, the NMRA set some standards for HO and other scales, but there was/is no stick to make manufacturers comply other than lack of sales. In the early 1960s, the HO standard was augmented with NMRA’s RP25 (Recommended Practice), which gave much finer wheels than had previously been used. The RP25 was a compromise that would work reasonably with the existing base of HO track. European manufacturers, most notably Rivarossi (imported by AHM and IHC as well as under the Rivarossi name) and Mehano (imported under several names also) retained European (NEM) standard wheels for a long time after almost universal adoption of RP25 by US manufacturers. These have what are known as pizza cutter flanges, and are deeper than RP25 and sometimes deeper than NMRA maximum.
Also, for reasons I don’t totally understand, there is apparently a mismatch between the NMRA standard for wheel gauge and track gauge. HO has the greatest mismatch, amounting to wheel gauge being almost 3 prototype inches less than track gauge. Other scales have about a 1 to 1.5 inch mismatch. The over-scale wheel widths compensate for this to some extent, but some wallowing on straight track is normal. In turnouts, if wheels are in gauge, and the turnout is set at the narrow edge of the gauge tolerance range, things work pretty well.
Model train manufacturing generally is not of a large enough production scale, nor has enough profit margin to individually check each piece of rolling stock and track. Tolerances have to be pretty close, and the closer to scale, the tighter the tolerances required in manufacturing. But too many rejects and the manufacturer loses his shirt. Plus shifts and damage occur in s
I have had billions of derailmets on atlas true track. I would always put my atlas DCC locomotive and the train wheel would keep derailing every turn. But it worked alot better with just regular atlas track. I have not have much derailments on that track at all.