For a 40’ ft intermountain box car how much weight should I add in oz ? thanks rambo1…
Assuming this is HO…
The NMRA recommended overall car weight is 1 oz, plus 1/2 oz for every actual inch of the model’s length. For a 40’ boxcar, this comes out to about 3.75 oz (Coincidentally, I just happen to have finished adding weight to a 50’ car, and that was 4.5 oz).
Keep in mind this is total weight, so weigh the car then figure out what you need to make up the difference. In my case, six pennies’ worth of extra weight was required [:D]
To weigh cars, you’ll obviously need a scale. I have a small digital postal scale I bought off eBay for that specific purpose. Before that, I was using my wife’s little kitchen scale measuring cup thingy.
Note that the NMRA recommendation is just that - a recommendation. Some people feel very strongly that cars should be heavier, others prefer lighter. I personally just stick with the NMRA guideline for now.
In HOn3 narrowgauge, the similar formula is ioften ignored and rolling stock run lighter. Narrowgauge locos need all the help they can get to make it upgrade, so being lighter doesn’t hurt. From my experience and others, the most critical thing to do is to have your cars consistently weighted, say use the NMRA formula, then subtract 20%, would be an example.
I suspect folks that like to run cars heavy have generally lighter grades to worry about.
If I may…If I was going to add extra weight I would toss the outdated NMRA RP20.1 and use a more uniform weight system.In short I would use (say) 3.5 ounces per car regardless of the car’s length.
If one is modeling the modern era that would be the best formula for adding weight since modern cars ranges from 42’-89’.
I weight all my cars to the NMRA standard. This has worked well for me.
I have found that you also have to make sure that your trucks and couplers swivel freely.
Good track work and the broadest curves and turnouts possible also help.
Good luck
Paul
That seems strange to me, can you explain. The difference in weight taking into account length is to avoid straight lining, coupler crunch/reverse derailing among other things. Pulling/backing around curves and through switches is affected by car length. I guess if all your curves were very large radii, say 60" or so then it’s not as much of a problem?
I’ve used RP20.1 and it’s worked great. Although to be honest I usually go heavier with the passenger cars due to vestibules, etc.
Richard
LION has no stinkin’ freight cars.
LION runs SUBWAY TRAINS. Him uses lifelike proto-1000. Him replaces couplers with draw bars, him interconnects both power and lighting. YEAH 48 wheel pickup!
Weight? Weight? LION uses 6 point printers slugs. (Don’t worry, you probly cannot get them–printers do not use hand set lead type anymore.) Of lead they are made, a tad thicker than a coin, about 3/4" wied and any length you would like. LION makes them as long as possible, but not to interfere with the operations of the trucks. Him glues them to the underside of the cars. He adds weight until the cars stop derailing, or the power cars cannot lug the beasts up the hills (which ever comes first).
And that is the reason for the weights. Your weights are for empty cars, so that empties will not derail on your layout. If you have hopper cars and want to fill them with coal (real coal that you can load and unload – sand blasting medium is cheap and works for this) then your train will become quite heavy. Well, DUH… trains are supposed to be heavy. If you cannot pull your coal train up the hill, you will just have to add more locomotives until it can.
Bottom Line: It is about operations.
ROAR
In general the NMRA standards have worked well for me. I use an old diet scale that I got at a rummage sale. Since my trains never exceed 6 or 7 cars if they are a tad heavy thats fine
I thought I did?
RP.20.1 says 1 oz, plus 1/2 oz for every inch of the car…That doesn’t bode well for modern cars that can range from 42’-89’…
RP20.1 was for the old wooden and light plastic cars that didn’t have with any weight.
I believe that for a beginner, it would probably be best to suggest that the RP would be a good place to start. Any other ideas, of which there are many, are probably biased to an indiividuals personal preference.
And I also am confused by your statements above. An “old” 40 foot wooden or plastic car weighted to the RP will weigh the same as a “modern” 40 foot car, since we are talking total weight, not weight added to whatever the car originally weighed.
And belonging to a club where cars in a train come from different owners, I can say from experience that cars all weighed to a common standard operate much better than cars weighted to individual preferences. So using the RP as the standard eliminates all the arguments over whomever other’s opinions should prevail.
thanks for all your advice I think I will go with the NMRA on this one. I have kitchen scale to use and alot of penneys for weight .Thanks rambo1… I’ll tell you how the modelle turns out it will be for CN.
The old wooden car kits and the early plastic car kits(Varney,Hobby Line,AHM,Revelle and others) of the 50/60s.
The plastic cars was ultra lite with oversize flanges and trucks that rolled like the handbrake was set and the wooden kits didn’t come with weight, trucks or couplers.
You can use RP20.1 on the steam era cars and do quite well but,the modern cars calls for a study since the car lengths varies as does the actual inches of the cars.
The 42’-89 cars’ doesn’t include well cars,automax cars,impacts etc.
I also recommend the standard or heavier if possible. You may have some exceptions to deal with such as empty hoppers, some flats or gons that have no room to add weight with out compromising too much on the fidelity of the model. Cars track better when weighted especially in long trains. If your running short trains under 15 cars you may not notice much in the way of troubles when running your train. I consider trains of this length Christmas Tree trains. If you are running trains close 50 cars and want to be able to move them like the prototype does weight is very helpful particularly when backing through ladders or up hill. If you go longer on trains as happens at some club layouts where trains can reach prototype lengths the weight really helps.
Some cars with metal wheels run well in long trains even with out the extra weight, such as the Accurail Twin Hoppers. They are a bit light when empty. I don’t remember how much, but they seem to track very well both going forward and backward, I use Kaydee couplers and the cars do well on our club layout in long trains.
With properly weighted or a bit heavier it is possible to back 90 car trains around our continuous run section at mainline speed going up and down grades and through curves, when it is time to switch the train into yard tracks one can back it through turnouts and around curves and have very prototypical switching of the train.
That in a nut shell are the benefits of heavy cars. If your loco’s are not up to pulling the cars up grades one can add weight to the loco, be sure to keep it over the drive wheels if one is to increase pulling power. Also there is a product called bullfrog snot that is reported to add traction to weak locos and increase the pulling power.
I have run Atlas, and BLI locos mainly as they made the models I wanted and they do very well. I have added some weight to 4 2-10-4s and they will pull nice looking coal trains around the layout by themselves, even up a short section of 4% grade. A
I have run a lot of cars and if you are going to run more than 12 cars, then weight is a concern. I find good wheels make the most difference, then the radius (not part of the discusion). The reason for weight standards for clubs is that they tend to run long trains quite often.
I found metal wheels put the weight where it belongs on the rail not riding high in a freight car and for me a uniform 3 ounces per car is about right…
Another advantage of weight - not mentioned so far - is to make automatic coupling work better at realistic speeds. Particularly in HOn3 (and N) where 1.5 oz cars are not unheard of, getting weight up around 3oz certainly helps with switching operations. I have seen too many instances with the 1.5 oz cars refusing to couple at a reasonable speed.
Also, in the days of sprung trucks, using the NMRA RP weight was really the minimum to make the truck springs work.
Since I’m not worried about long trains - a 12 car train behind a 2-6-0 or 4-4-0 was reasonably prototypical in 1900 - I’d rather have the smoother operations that come with cars weighted to the RP.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
…modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it’s always 1900… in HO and HOn3