I understand the standard HO weight to be 1 oz plus .5 oz per inch, which equals about 3.75 ounces for 40’ car…which means that a 50’ car weighs more than 40’ and a 60’ even more…if there is a mixture of cars, should they all weigh the same or stick to the standard with mixed weights?
The NMRA did extensive research 40+ years ago to come up with the RP’s. They will work, they are an acceptable solution - are they ideal? - no one has yet done enough testing to determine that.
I stay with the correct weight. You have to watch out for empty stack cars and flats. Also keep the weight as low as possible.
Here’s something to blow your mind. On my club’s modular layout, I run upto a 150 car coal train that weighs over 40 pounds, and am able to pull it with a single Athearn bb -9 (with a 8 oz. add. weight.).
I WEIGH ALL OF MY CARS TO NMRA STANDARDS, USE METAL WHEELS AND KADEE COUPLERS. I RECENTLY PULLED 62 CARS IN A TRAIN WITH ONE KATO LOCOMOTIVE DOING ALL OF THE PULLING!
I use the NRMA RPs for weighing cars. I can pull a 125+ coal drag (Ho scale) at train shows around 32" radious curves with no problems of cars ‘clothes-lining’ on the curves. I only need to Atlas GP40s but 5 looks cooler.
I would recommend sticking with NMRA RPs as no one has proven any other method to be better.
Before our old club layout was torn down I was routinely running 60+car freights with my 4 unit Stewart FT’s all powered. We even had some 24-27 inch radius 90degree curves. All cars weighted to NMRA Std, and all have metal wheels. I will be curious to see if I can still pull that train now that I have taken the power out of one B unit so I can fill it with sound. I converted the three remaining power units to DCC with Digitrax decoders. I am looking for someone with a large layout with big curves in the Port Townsend, WA area to try it out.
Now,for the other side of the coin…I am yet to weigh my cars to RP20.1…I find that it is not needed like it was years ago…It is the thoughts of many modelers that the weight should be where its needed the most…At the rail…I agree and disagree with that thought…You see for years I ran Athearn cars at stock weight and plastic wheels and never had a problem…This was true with the club I belong to at that time.
The club I belong to now nobody follows RP20.1 as we feel as a club it is not needed…We run 50 car trains and have a working hump yard.Now…We did bring the impact cars and front runners up to the weight of a stock blue box car.
This has work rather well for us even with the heavier cars made by Atlas and other companies…
Now we feel as a club that using metal wheels puts the weight where it belongs on the rail and not on the car floor.
I try to weigh all my cars to the NMRA recommendations, but I’ve got so many hoppers to do that I’m going to try NOT using it with them and see how it goes. If it doesn’t work out, I can “easily” add the additional weight because the way I do it is to use thin sheet lead cut into three different sizes which drop in as the floor of the car. Then I just spray paint them a color close to the car color and heavily weather with chalks. These just drop in (held in with glue) and that’s the easy part. The pain part is that I have to cut and bend the metal and otherwise play around with to tweak it to fit well. Multiply this by dozens of hoppers and you can see why it would nice if I didn’t have to do this.
Now another thing I have read recently is that the NMRA weight suggestion was developed decades ago before we had the free rolling trucks and metal wheelsets which many use today, so that ideally their study should be re-done taking this into consideration and probably re-defining the weight suggested.
I have a friend who replaces all his wheelsets with Kadee wheelsets, and he doesn’t add ANY additional weight to his cars, and everything runs and operates very well on his large, basement sized New Haven layout. OTOH, I have operated on a layout where the owner didn’t add additional weight either, and used stock wheelsets, and I was constantly re-railing cars while trying to do switching during an op-session.
So flip a coin, or at least do some experimenting with your cars, and see what seems to work out the best for your situation.
Hope this helps some.
HOW MANY CARS CAN I PULL: varies greatly from layout to layout.
FRICTION between the sideframes and axles vary from manufacture to manufacture, (Sometimes year to year, and car to car).
GRADES also make a difference - like on a real railroad.
WEIGHT being pulled is another - Not just the cars - Engine weight is an offsetting factor.
NMRA weight standards are an attempt to equalize rolling dynamics in different length cars in a common consist. They take in a averaging friction factor. Do YOU use them?
NOW if you think how many cars you can pull is a big deal, try adding a 1% grade.
Even ‘Flatland’ railroads have them.
BRAKIE:
As a former Railroad man you should know that real railroads put their heaviest cars on the front, and lightest (empties) on the rear to avoid closelining.
Many railroad clubs, in which members have an assortment of cars - heavy and light - adopt weight standards to allow intermixing of equipment and minimizing problems.
Older Clubs with mostly member’s Athearn collections had a de-facto standardization in place:Similar weights, similar trucks, low couplers. When enough members brought in newer equipment, Standardization of couplers, rolling characteristic’s, and car weighting became beneficial.
80’ Brass passenger cars typically weigh 11oz -12 oz., Rivarossi 's 5 oz.
Today’s Walthers ‘Budd’ cars 6.75 oz, See the problem? If not, can you see the potential problem? I’d like to see how far cars roll in your ‘working’ hump yard sometime - without stardards.
Metal wheels DO lower the center of gravity (and increase trackability) but don’t necessarily address friction and ‘rollability’. Clubs WITH standards are beneficial to their members, whatever they may be. SOME of us go ‘kicking and screaming’ into the next generation.
What is the recommended weight for locomotives ? I own mostly Athearn.
There is no recommended weight for locomotives. As a general rule, the heavier the better, because a heavier locomotive will pull more without wheel slip.
I think the NMRA Standard should be revisited. If, as nfmisso says, the standard has been around for 40+ years, then the standard had to be developed around non-skew round open frame motors without flywheels and without even a pulse-control switch on the power pack. The minimum scale speed was probably around 10 scale miles per hour for even the best locomotives. Remember, this was the era of the Athearn Rubber band drives. This is why Brakie can run his underweight cars today with no problem. Can motors, skew-wound armatures, flywheels, and electronic momentom does make a difference. Let’s not forget about the abondonment of the X2f coupler.
You make a good case Leon, but so far the weight standard it does work with a lot of today’s equipment, however, we should keep an open mind. Since the standard was set years back did you have any suggestions that could improve performance? It is good to experiment.
Your view would be a good question for NMRA representatives. I may be wrong, but I think at least one of the guys on the Kalmbach Magazine team like Andy Sperandeo might be on the NMRA board.
Zip Bergie an e-mail and he’ll forward your question to the right people.
I think the standard probably could stand revision. On my layout which is HO, I only add .5 oz. + .5oz./inch length. I’ve ran 60 car trains on 2 percent grades and around 24" radius curves with no problems. The cars are mostly 40’ and 50’, but there are some 60’ and 65’ runnin in the consist. I model the transition era, so 65 footers are about the limit. 85’ passenger cars are usually ran together in passenger consists so I haven’t seen problems between them and very short cars runnig together. I agree that you should experiment with your equipment to see what works best. I fouind that following the standard strictly, I was having to add weight to every car and unloaded hoppers were hard to add to without it being noticable.
I don’t think you will have any problems at all using the three powered Stewarts, I bet that 2 would do the trick with under 2% grades. I feel that Stewart “F” s are probably one of the best running and pulling pieces next to the P2K “E” units.
Bob K.
Leon, I fail to see where a skew-wound motor & flywheels make a lot of diference withof freight cars. A smoother engine will lessen the chance of ‘string-lining’ when starting, but cars that weigh the same proportionally to their length will always improve operation. One of the disadvantages we have in our models is 5-6 times the ‘slack’ in our Kadee couplers compared to the prototype, and no brake system. I happen to weight all of my cars as close as possible to the current standards, and use P2K or Intermountain metal wheels for the most part. I used to regauge my plastic Athearn wheels if needed, and even placed 5 minute epoxy behind the wheelset. Butt after a year of running on a club layout, the ‘gunk’ build up was too hard to remove - I went to Kadee wheels(1970’s). I still had a lot of gunk buildup, but I could clean off metal wheels. Banning all plastic wheels got rid of the crud/gunk issue. I have spent the past year re-coring all of my trucks with the Micro-Mark tool, inserting P2K wheels, and checking weight again. This has resulted in flawless operation, no cars ‘jittering’ down the track, and very smooth switching/coupling operation. I suspect the 3-3.5 oz average you get in a stock ‘out of the box’ plastic kit will work with similar cars, but there is nothing like a weighted car with metal wheels for optimal switching…
Jim Bernier
I’ve noticed more of a difference with weight when pushing cars vs. pulling. All my cars have metal wheelsets and most are weighted to NMRA specs. I have one stretch of 3% grade around a 30" radius curve, and with 20 or so weighted cars pushing them up the hill is no problem. If there are light cars between the locomotives and the rest of the train, though, the opposing forces will pu***hem right off the track on the curve.
I found that some of the 40 foot RTR cars too light. I have several Walthers RTR 50’ coil cars that weigh 2.4 ounces. (They will be weighted to about 5 ounces soon)
Edit- One of the 4 coilcars were found to be underweight. The other three were at 4 and 5/8 ounce. I added weight to bring the 4th car up even with the others.
I have a batch of athearn boxcars that weight about 3.4 ounces I will be making them 4 ounces to go with the intermountain cars which are my best runners at 4 ounces. Once everyone has the same weight and same type of wheels (Proto 2000 33") they should be trouble free.
Some of the other cars are too light and I am probably going to sell them off because I dont know how to get into them to add weight without damaging what is already assembled.
When I run trains I accumulate cars that cannot stay on the track, empties and flats go back to the end of train by the caboose and the heavy stuff goes up next to the engine. I also try to build trains with “Like” cars that are identical. I can do wild trains with crazy consists but the throttle handling will determine if I can keep the thing from derailing.
Start at one ounce and add a 1/2 ounce every actual inch of car length. Thus a 40 foot boxcar = 6 inches therefore 4 ounces.
I use pennies and goo. They sometimes ask “how much did it cost (or how much money) for that train?” I say pennies.
Don said:As a former Railroad man you should know that real railroads put their heaviest cars on the front, and lightest (empties) on the rear to avoid closelining.
Don,That is simply not true.It would be impossible to preblock a train consist that includes empties by building a train the way you suggest.
Then how about the cars you may pick up en-route at outlaying yards that includes empties? The road crew does not have the time nor room to do such work…Besides that a TERMINAL man’s job as he has the space to build or break down trains.
Don,I do not fault you for what you have read and believe to be true…Its the fault of the "Ex-Spurts that know very little about real railroading but claims to know all.
Now if ANYBODY doesn’t believe that may I suggest a afternoon of railfaning with close attention to the trains consist?
For those that may not know
Train consist=The way a train is made up.