I finally had to bite the bullet an tear up the north end of the rail yard. After I finished the yard I landscaped with sculptamold. This got moister in a seam in the plywood causing it to swell slightly. Of course this jacked up the track a small amount. The four axle units didn’t mind too much but any amount of speed would derail the six axle stuff. After pulling turnouts, grinding, checking, reinstalling, leveling, rechecking, I got it fixed right?
[%-)] WRONG! I ran everything with six axles through and everything is fine but as I build up speed I still get stuff coming through with a wheel hanging out. Now I starting to get mad. I follow the worst offender around the track with a flashlight and find that a rail joint on a 24" curve 19’ away on the other end of the track has a bump in it. The GPs didn’t mind the2-8-0 didn’t mind even the 4-8-2 didn’t care but the six axles have a attitude.
Happy days are here again. [:D]
Funny enough… I had a spot on my last layout that I could runall the small stuff, the Mike’s, the hudson, even the dang 2-6-6-2 that’s fussier than granny’s dog… but my six axle diesel a pricey, solid, strong prime mover which could reliably pull any consist I put behind iton the outer main line… On the inner however, on a broad curve… it would bind, screech, chatter, and shudder a bit, but not derail, I followed it around ther with a flashlight and a magnifying class and could find no aparent problem with the track on either rail, and the NMRA gauge found no aparent problem with the wheel alignment…
I didn’t remember it happening before the prior winter… the layout was in the unheated garage… but it was 60 degrees when I discovered the problem… After a week… I was thoroughly upset…
Finally I decided that the offending piece of flex track had to go… it was a piece of model power flex track…The only piece of model power track on the layout… everything else was atlas… There was hardly any curve in the track.
I replaced it with a piece of atlas track, and the problem went away…
Not making an anti model power statement… just saying.
Just as soon as the caulk sets up, I hand-push my designated derailment checkers (cars with cookie-cutter and rhomboid flanges, long rigid wheelbases…) through in both directions at well above track speed. Immediately after power is connected I repeat the effort, with 2-8-2 D50380 on the point. (It isn’t the drivers which find problems, it’s the underweighted and mis-drilled rear tender truck.)
Any problems which raise their ugly heads are dealt with NOW! Usually, a stroke or two with a file or emory board cleans up whatever was helping the flanges to climb over the railhead.
Interestingly, my one six (driver) axle steamer is very forgiving of less than wonderful trackwork - it’s a cosmetically modified Mantua/Uintah 2-6-6-2T which can take a 300mm radius curve with only minimum complaint. OTOH, my two 2-Co+Co-2 catenary motors (with well spread out drivers and no lateral motion) will find ANYTHING that isn’t up to standard. Don’t even think of having them try anything under a 610mm (24-inch) radius, or anything less than precision-laid track.
Is anyone still wondering why I’m obsesso about trackwork?
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - on the best trackwork I can lay)
My first engine to show me up was the Lionel Challenger. I went to work and made it happy. Then I built another layout.
The next new acquisition to show me up on the new layout was the BLI Niagara. I went to work and made it happy. I don’t mind jumping through hoops to keep the ladies happy.
Then came the brutish BLI Pennsy J1 10-coupled and I thought I’d be making her happy soon enough. Nope, she was okay with the trackwork. Huh!?
Next came the BLI Pennsy Duplex. Yes, I was soon at work.
Next came the BLI Y6b. Perfectly happy. Whew!
Next came the BLI UP 2-10-2 Hybrid. I really had to put on a show this time. I ended up ripping up 3’ of track after fiddling around for three days and going exactly nowhere. Now it is happy.
The latest problems have come with two SD-75M’s from Genesis. Their long frames and six axle trucks just did not like two places on the layout. By now I had learned what was going on, and in all cases is was imperceptible undulations in one or both rails, and not necessarily across from each other. When one rail dips a half mm back here, it levers the front truck when the rear truck reaches the dip and twists the frame a bit. It’s not too bad, but if at the same time the front truck is negotiating a turnout or a curve, and the outer rail is also dipping, you get the front truck slipping sideways at the front axle because the flange has nothing to bite into.
The cure now is to soften the glued ballast, a 10 minute wait after spraying it with water, and then I pry up the outer rails a wee bit, poke ballast under them or slide a card shim, and then let it harden again. So far, this has solved those six-axle blues.
I’m about ready to saw 2 inches off of an 8x8 section layout because of the difference of height with aonother similar sized section connected by bridge. Just too many issues otherwise
I had a similar situation where one rail dropped a bit in relation to the other rail. The geeps didn’t mind it all. They just rolled right on through. Even the big six axle Athearn stuff went through OK. The problem loco was a my Proto 2000 PA1. It would derail EVERY time. I finally decided enough was enough and pulled up that part of the track and relaid it so it was level. Problem solved.
Well, I’ve had a problem now for several years. Unfortunately, It was under a city. I battled it for a number of years and recently, I gave up. I removed the city. All of it. I replaced the turnouts under the city and laid in new track. Currently, I have replaced about half of the city placed on new material and am testing, testing testing.
This is an unfortunate issue with having no working suspension system. If we had sprung and equalized trucks, we’d be able to run on some terrible trackwork. I’ve got one spot where a turnout lies on an elevation transition. I have no problems with train cars or 4 axle power. I don’t have a problem with a 2-8-0 steam engine either. The second I try to run a modern 6 axle unit over that spot, they go off every time. Fortunately it is a location that is only served by my local switcher so it is never an issue. After looking at it closely I found that it was due to no compliance in the truck. The front axle picks up just enough to pull it off. Figure out a way to equalize the trucks and your problems will go away. That’s not an easy thing though which is why we don’t have it now.