Imho, the manufacturers today do a “reasonable” job regarding rolling stock weight, although some still lean towards the “lightweight” side. I can’t blame the manufacturers for producing rolling stock under the recommended weight as (most of us realize) some modelers will complain. So the choice is ours to add the weight (which is not difficult for most modern production models).
A note to keep in mind is that many of us that are into DCC-Sound will sacrifice some pulling power since some older HO and N locomotives require creating space inside the units for the speaker / decoder combo. This usually involves shaving or even cutting the factory installed weights. So some modelers, with grades, may prefer to keep rolling stock weight slightly below recommended standards.
OTOH…one eyeball “glitch” that, imho, is annoying is seeing rolling stock wobbling whenever they roll over turnout frogs and rail joints. You can see this on some YouTube vids. To me, it spoils the illusion of watching a realistic looking “heavy” tran that weighs many tons. Adjusting the screws holding the trucks, combined with bringing the car up to the recommended weight (or slightly exceeding it) often solves the issue.
Actually, that wobbling happens on the prototype - especially at lower speeds in yards where the track undulates. Unfortunately, like sound - the wobbling doesn’t transfer down to scale well and it appears more like a jitter than a wobble.
I have a lot of fond memories of riding the NYC subway trains and those classic Red Birds always wobbled when rolling over switches and diamonds! I should have used the word “Jitter” instead of wobbling as it is a more accurate description of a much faster yawing motion.
me i have a ton of big boys & the rivarossi ones i pop open the tenders & stuff tire weights in them waaay over NMRA standards but those centerpiede tenders are light from the factory
A “Recommended Practice” (like RP20.1) is just that.
A recommendation. Someone could recommend we all try skydiving, but it don’t mean I’m going to jump from a perfectly fine airplane by choice.
If you, or the club, or John Doe has an problem with a models weight simply because it does not meet a recommendation, that is your, the clubs, or John Doe’s problem.
I do not mess with weight unless there is an issue. Some cars will get added weight, some cars are already heavy enough. But it is much easier to add weight than to remove it.
So my opinion, is that most of the modern offerings are weighted enough. If there is an issue, it’s usually due to bad track work, bad wheelsets, operator error, or an issue with truck rotation snagging a detail, etc… Very rarely is it truly a weight issue.
Over the years, I’ve saved the weights from cars that I’ve scrapped and have also accummulated flat mild and stainless steel metal strips and plates, which can easily be cut to fit with a dremmel cut-off tool. To avoid galvanic action, I keep steel and aluminum metals separated.
Overall, they’ve come in handy for the older “featherweight” Rivarossi and AHM passenger cars that I’ve gotten over the years. Yes, old tooling but so much fun to experiment with and spruce up. Just fill in the floor pockets with birdshot (smother with light glue), and add flat steel weights. With metal wheels, they roll nicely!
I also use birdshot in my passenger cars but I have found the Harbor Freight weights easy for freight, rarely have I added any weight to a freight car.
An option that you can employ if you’re in a pinch regarding weights: Use neatly cut, 2" wide duct tape!
Cut and then lay out a piece of ducttape that is the length of the weight, on to your work table.
Lay the weight down on one edge of the tape; not the center.
Take the opposite side of the tape and fold it over the weight (like a burritto). Cut off the excess tape and you have a neatly covered weight. You’d be surprised how much this cuts down on unwanted magnetism.
I’m also a fan of the lightweight Rivarossi “heavyweight” passenger cars, and used custom-cast lead weights to bring them up to a pretty-well “standard” weight of 15 ounces each.
They tracked beautifully, with no jittering whatsoever…a very prototypical way of rolling ponderously, just like the real ones did.
However, with the soft plastic of the Rivarossi sideframes, it didn’t take long for the axle pockets in the journals to enlarge enough for the wheelsets to drop out when a car was lifted off the layout for servicing.
I hope to evenually replace those trucks with ones from Walthers (Delrin sideframes), and re-install the weights.
I second the trackwork idea. Prototype railroads spend a lot of money on track and that’s the first part of a railroad to go to pieces when the money runs short. For model railroads your time is the equivalent of the money spent by real railroads. Even the best looking models look terrible running over second rate rails. And the tolerances are very small compared to prototype, in HO they are 87 times as small. Nothing is worth doing more carefully than laying your track correctly, literally nothing. It is not just the foundation of the model it is the display method for those beautifully detailed and “correctly” weighted models.
