Hi Everyone, I have two questions. First, Should I add weight to my rolling stock? I have read that many Model Railroaders add weight for traction and stability. Second, I purchased a large number of used cars and most have plastic wheels. I have a few new cars and they have metal wheels. Should I change out the plastic wheels to metal? By the way, im working in HO scale. Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me! Mark
The only reason you should add weight to your cars is if they don’t track very well and weight will help them. There are NMRA recommendations on car weight.
As far as wheels, metal wheels are great, but they can be noisy. InterMountain, Exactrail and Proto make great wheelsets
My club mandated metal wheels when it determined the track would stay cleaner. As to weight, your trains will operate more reliably if all the cars weigh more or else the same, proportional to their length, and the NMRA recommendations are a good place to start. If you’re batting a dozen or two cars around a flat switching layout or a 4x8 layout, it’s less critical. Sometimes a car that derails can be fixed by adding weight but often the problem is wheels that aren’t gauged correctly or some other mechanical problem.
Mark, I personally think cars should be brought to NMRA weight standers more on smaller layouts. Wights will help the cars track better on smaller turns.
On replacing wheels sets. If they have plastic wheels and axles replaces them! If the cars are Athearn and Walther’s with metal axles and plastic wheels I would not be in the big a hurry.
Before I bought any new wheels I get your self one of theses!
http://www.micromark.com/HO-Truck-Tuner,8241.html
It is amazing how much better a car can be made to roll. Then if you are still not satisfied, then get the metal wheels.
Good quality Plastic Wheels that come on Athearn and Walther’s do not gum up the track like cheap wheels that come on Life Like and Bachmann entry level cars. I spent hundreds of dollars replacing wheels because I was told the track would stay cleaner. Same now as it was before.
My [2c]
Cuda Ken
Weight. A light car sandwiched between heavy cars can get pulled off the track on curves. Your trains will stay on the track more if all the cars weight “about” the same. The NMRA reccommemds that an HO car ought to weight 1/2 ounce plus another 1/2 ounce per inch of car length. Most RTR cars will be an ounce light coming right from the factory.
I weigh my cars on a cheapy little spring scale I “borrowed” from the kitchen utensils. Postage scales sold at stationary stores are also good. Properly weighted cars are especially helpful on backing moves.
I like metal wheels, mostly because they show a realistic gleam of polished metal on the treads. But I am too cheap to upgrade my entire fleet of Athearn, Model Power, and Accurail cars. The plastic wheels roll OK and stay on the track. So they stay plastic. I don’t have a “track cleaning problem”. About twice I year I wipe off the railheads with a rag moistened with GooGone and my trains run fine. The looks of plastic wheels can be improved by brush painting the wheel faces with grimy or oily black on friction bearing cars. The journal boxes leaked enough oil to make the wheel faces greasy. Roller bearing cars keep the wheel faces dry and the want to be painted a dry tan mud color.
David
Please correct me if I am wrong but I thought the NMRA weight standard was ‘1’ ounce plus 1/2 ounce per inch of car length.
Dave
Generally, if it has plastic wheels, it doesn’t go on my layout.
I consider the extra “noise” created by metal wheels a feature, not a bug.
Adding metal wheels automatically adds some weight vs the plastic ones they replace. Added weight up to NMRA standards is good, but more important is keeping weight relatively even, whatever weight standard you choose to go by.
Here is the NMRA discussion on weighting and recommended weights:
This is more or less exactly how I feel about plastic versus metal wheels as well…
As for weight, I’d recommend sticking with the NMRA guidelines as the others suggested… On my layout in particular (a 4x10-foot HO layout with 18" curves), cars with adequate weight are fairly important to me!
I love when a question stirs up a great conversation! You have all been extremely helpfull and I really appreciate the advice. It seems to me that I should start by spending some time on the NMRA web site and learning more about the hobby that I love. Thanks again all!! Mark.
I am slowly replacing my plastic wheels with metal. They are a little noisier, but the don’t wear out like plastic and are cleaner. As to weight, using the NMRA standard I modified all of my rolling stock a year ago and it made a big improvement in overall operation. Now not one car gets added to the layout without having Kadee couplers at the correct height, proper weight, and metal wheelsets.
Sorry, my bad.
You are absolutely correct. it’s ONE ounce plus 1/2 ounce per inch.
I must be getting old
But only in HO. Seems that N ascale cars were too small to put that much weight in them, even at such short legnths, and they had to come up wit a smaller standard.
Me? I begrudglingly have been weighting cars and swapping out wheelsets when I do couplers (Sergents, Baby!) and add in my FRED holders. Since I haven’t got those yet, I haven’t been doing much weighing. I;m doing mine with a Postal Scale from Staples (19) and a collection of plastic water bottle caps and BBs. Place car on scale, glue cap over trucks, pour BBs into lids to proper weight. Add copious amounts of glue to the BBs, WAIT FOR IT TO DRY* and re-assemble car.
*One may or may not experience the joyous senation of sticky BBs flying across ther room and epoxying themselves to everything if there is failure to follow this step, and onejars the floor of the car.
It’s good to see I’m not alone! I have a lot of Athearn cars that are 20-30 years old and still have shiney clean plastic wheels.The only thing I don’t agree on is the use of Goo Gone to clean the track. I find CRC 2-26 far superior for cleaning and preventing dirt build up in the first place.