If I run a 2-rail boxcar on 3-rail track, will it blow up?

Classic Toy Trains Forum
1

What is the difference in a 2-rail and 3-rail box car with no electrical stuff?

I see that in ads and I just wondered.

Thanks.

2

The bigest differance between 2 rail and 3 rail cars is the flanges on the wheels and the type of coupler they have. I have several 2 rail box cars and have replaced the trucks and couplers with standard 3 rail ones.

The 2 rail flanges may not stay on the track for you depending on the type of track you are using.

3

The wheels of the 2-rail car are insulated from each other. The car will not blow up; but neither will it operate an anti-derailing turnout nor an accessory or signal using an isolated control rail.

4

When I was a kid, I had Lionel trains but first I had a wind up train !! I did have a couple loops & a figure 8 and I would still run the wind up train sometimes to make it look like I really had some action going on there !! Though I knew not to turn the transformer on !! [(-D]

Thanks, John

5

Wouldn’t have mattered if you had!

6

Thanks Bob !! I never really thought about till now, 50 yrs. later !! That means then that you could run a windup on the same track as a regular train !!

Thanks, John

7

I actually have an Atlas 2-rail Gunderson 5-unit car sitting on my temporary layout (which uses Lionel 027 track) and the 2-rail flanges will stay on the track. Of course it derails over the 027-042 switches, but it tracks surprisingly well over most of the other sections and even 054 curves.

Geno

8

Yes, it will…

It’s called an exploding boxcar…[:D]

9

Turning insulated wheels in the presence of a magnetic field produce tachyon particles. If you’re not careful your whole layout might implode. [:O]

10

Actually 2 rail cars run pretty good on fastrack, Atlas and Realtrax, may run on others as well. Last Christamas they had a 50 car train of scale hopper cars, with one coupler transition car, pulled by two 3 rail diesels runing on the display layout at the E-town Library. This was on fastrack. It ran for hours with no derailments. Don’t recall if there were switches in the line. Most 3 rail switches are designed so that the 3 rail wheels actually run on the flanges through the switches, so that could be a problem.