I am upgrading some passenger cars I had on the shelf for several years. I added Inter Mountain wheels and Kadee couplers. Now I want to add extra weight. The cars weigh in at 3.3 oz. They are approximately 12 “ long. Using NMRA specs. that adds up to 9.3 oz. per car. A ten-car train would mean close to 3 pounds. This seems like too much weight for an engine to pull. Has anyone out there done this before and what amount weight did you use for a passenger car?
Doc
I used to have a set of Amtrak passenger cars that wouldn’t stay on the track because they were too light. I increased their weight to 6.5 oz. That did the trick.
Doc - I get 7.0 oz with a 12 in car. NMRA says 1 oz plus 1/2 oz per inch of car. 1 + 6 = 7.0. I have a bunch of IHC pass cars and all are between 6.5and 7.0 0z. What a difference it makes.
Terrry
NMRA Specs for a 12" car is 6.75 oz per car or 6.5 - 7 oz each - not 9.3.
Prototype passenger trains routinely pulled 4 - 8 cars per engine on the flatlands. Santa Fe used 4 to 8 diesels to pull 16- 21 cars up Cajon.
Our electric trains generally can pull 10 cars with 2 engines easily. Good rolling trucks make a difference. Wheels are only half of that equasion,and Side frame material and friction reducing teflon grease are the othe half. Most Hobby manufactures don’t make their own trucks or buy expensive ones, to put on their cars. That includes expensive brass. The ‘working part’ of your car is the couplers and trucks - don’t skimp there.
Try a set of IHC metal passenger trucks ($25) and SEE the difference. Then you will at least know. Go from there.
My mistake the NMRA formula says “initial weight”. I interpreted that as “actual” weight of the car. I added 3.5 oz. (actual weight) to the additional weight determined by car length. This gave me the high numbers. The NMRA should probably say figure out additional weight and add 1 oz. for dumb guys like me.
Thanks a lot guys.
Doc
A ten car passenger train is roughly equivalent in weight and rolling resistance to a twenty (U.S.) car freight. If you need to doublehead the freight, you will need to doublehead the passenger train.
Most diesel-powered passenger trains had at least 2 units on the point, with cabs pointed in opposite directions. That simplified switching at terminals (no 180 degree turn) and provided protection against stalling on the road if a prime mover died. Even the New York Central, which used a pancake for a profile, ran E-units in A-A configuration.
Chuck
FWIW, I updated a set of Rivarossi passenger cars by removing the steel weight (.030"), carving off the plastic berm that was holding it, and glued in a sheet of .040" lead weight almost the entire length of the car. Then glued the insert interior on top of that. It raises the interior somewhat but not objectionably. Works out nearly dead on to 7.0 ozs. total.
I am playing around with passenger car weight myself right now. The passenger train that I am currently modeling is the consolidated El Cap/Super Chief which puts me at 17-18 cars. I am running an ABBBA power consist (Genesis F7s), so I think I would be OK, even at NMRA “standards”. I have also tuned all my trucks up and have found that to make a tremedous difference. For the plastic trucks (all Train Station Products trucks) I have used a truck tuner, and for my Walther’s and brass passenger car trucks, I have used graphite lube.
Has anybody figured out how to make the Walthers commuter cars with the inside bearings roll better or should iI say at all?
I finished weighting and re-wheeling twenty of my passenger cars. I got used lead wheel weights from the local gas station. My passenger cars were all about 3oz so I needed four 1oz weights for each car to bring it up to 7oz. I wrapped each weight in an envelope of aluminum foil than used strips of Duct Tape to attach them to the car floor.
I used Inter Mountain wheels on all of the passenger cars. Some cars still did not roll on my inclined test track. After much investigation I finally found that some of the break shoes on the trucks were touching the wheels ever so lightly. I used a pair of needle nose pliers to very gently pull the brake away from the wheel. Even one brake touching will hold the car from rolling. I guess just like the prototype the brakes are made for keeping the car stopped.
Doc
I use a dry graphite lubricant. I use this for metal trucks with metal axles, and it works great. I have heard to stay away from liquid lubricants.
I run most of my passenger cars at around the recommended NMRA weight, which is considerably less than their original weight of 12 or 13 ounces. While the solid rolling qualities of the heavier cars are nice, I was concerned about wearing out the bearing holes in the soft plastic sideframes of the Rivarossi cars.
A friend runs all of his passenger cars at about 15 ounces each, both brass and plastic, although all have metal trucks and wheels. Very impressive to see multiple 15 or 20 car passenger trains running with 5 or 6 diesels on each.
Wayne
I think I’ve stated this on another post, but Molybdenum (Moly Magic) is in a cream form from a tube. It contains graphite. Available at a lot of hobby shops. This stuff works pretty well and all you need is a very small drop inside of each journal.
I may have to give the Moly Magic a shot. I haven’t had any problems with the dry graphite YET, but it is always good to have a plan B.
I believe whether it is freight or passenger, lighter cars are better. The only reason to add weight is to make up for bad track. Some cars can use a little weight to more closely match other cars on the layout, but the NMRA specs are WAY too heavy.
Lighter cars work fine on good track. Light cars go up and down grades easier. Light cars don’t wear out expensive locomotives. The NMRA standards on car weight date back to a time when many guys ran NMRA couplers on talgo trucks with plastic wheels running on crappy track.
I have read a couple of replies with concerns about too heavy a car damaging the bearing surface in plastic trucks, or the NMRA table was created back in the days of plastic talgo trucks.
I have run AHM/Rivarossi passenger cars weighted to 6 oz for years on club layouts, train show modular layouts and on my home layout. The only thing I have ever found in the journals is lint/crud that needed to be cleaned out. In the past 3 years all of my older passenger cars have had the Micro-Mark ‘tuner’ taken to them, and all now have new metal wheels that replaced the Kadee metal wheels of the 70’s(when most of these were painted/detailed). I can believe that some styrene plastic trucks may have a wear problem, but most of the trucks I have seen are usually a tougher engineering plastic.
As far as that ‘outdated’ NMRA table; it was developed long before the days of plastic talgo trucks. The key point is not so much to weight your cars to any particular standard, but to make sure that you have a common plan and stick to it. As long as the weight/car length is the same for your entire fleet, you will get rid of the light car at the head end of the train derailing so often. I have yet to really ‘wear out’ any of my engines. I have seen some engines with wear problems due to NO scheduled service - the same folks probably drive their cars till they drop as well!
Myself, I do try to weight all of my cars to something close to the NMRA table. I like operating and the ‘heft’ of a weighted car makes coupling/switching better.
Jim
I’ve seen light freight and passenger cars run on various layouts. The one thing that used to bug me a bit was seeing them jiggle easily upon rolling over turnout frogs and railjoints, even on layouts with good trackwork. I saw this happen on a video where a modeler was running a beautiful New York Central streamliner. Unfortunately as the train crossed a trestle and the camera zoomed in, each car did the “Jello Jiggle” as they hit the bridge’s rail joints.
Cars that are excessively heavy may wear out locomotives. However, many of today’s locomotives from Atlas, Kato, Stewart, Athearn, Walthers Proto, etc., have better drives than in years past. They can pull reasonably long trains without the modeler having to worry about drivetrain components quickly wearing out.