About ten years ago I modified 8 Athearn ATSF caboooseesss as per Andy Sperandeo’s MR article that came out about that time. They all got KDs, Intermountain wheels, fully decaled, window treatments, etc.
My recently built layout has a caboose track specially built to show off this “fleet”. The problem is, that the caboose track sits on a large/wide duckunder and has a very, very slight grade. As slight as it is, the cars are so free wheeling that they just won’t stay parked.
A few years ago I read in MR about different ways of slowing down or “parking” your cars. Today I decided to try one of those methods, and it works like a charm.
I took a KD coupler spring, cut it in two, and placed one of the halves on one axle end, and the other half on the end of another axle. The result is just enough friction to keep the car from free rolling on the caboose track, but the car still is free wheeling enough to hold up the ends of the freights.
This fix - not my idea - can be adjusted for each car (by the number of axle ends to which a spring is applied). Frankly, it made my day!
I took a different approach to the problem. I have a branch line that leads to a mine. While the mine is on level ground, the track and parallel siding leading to it are on a grade. My original plan was to put a retractable pin in the siding to hold the cars in place after they are loaded and pushed back downhill from the mine. The mine sidings are double ended - push empties in from the uphill side, loads are rolled downhill by gravity after loading as was done at Appalachian coal mines. But cars that rolled down the passing siding hit the pin pretty hard. Also I found there was a slight grade at the top of the branch line at the mine that allowed uncoupled cars to head down the branch. I didn’t want to add wipers that could hold on such a grade as it would cut the train length too much. Hmmm… what to do…
I took several bristles from an old toothbrush and glued them vertically with contact cement between two pieces of stripwood with the bristles about 1/16 in apart and standing vertically up from the wood, sort of like… umm. bristles on a toothbrush?! I glued the stripwood between the rails and trimmed the bristles so they would be about 1/16th of an inch above the axles. I put three of these about 18 inches apart on the passing siding and branch line. Now I can push the loads down to the siding or park a train on the branch line and it stays put. I have not had any derailments from the bristles and they don’t seem to add much drag. The only downside is the slight clicking noise as the bristles engage the axles. The freight cars (mostly hoppers, of course) need to have proper weight. I have converted all cars used on the branch line to metal wheels also, so they are free rolling.
Anyway, my two cents on a way to apply the brakes. It works in my situation
A few inches from the end of the siding, I was missing a couple of ties where I joined two sections of track. So, instead of doing proper track maintenance, I “let the weeds grow” with some field grass. It’s stiff enough to stand up, but soft enough to be pushed over by a freight car axle and then stiff enough again to hold the car in place until a switcher comes along to pull it away.
I hate to be visually impaired, but I cannot picture this in my mind (I hope it’s not as simple as a spring sticking out on the open side). Can you post a pic?
Since I have 2.5% mainline grades, and a 4% grade uphill to the collieries, anything which increases the rolling resistance of a car is a non-starter on my layout. Of course, my brake vans have little wipers on the axles (part of the switch that lights the markers.)
To keep cars with free-rolling trucks (or axles, in the case of four-wheelers) from wandering off, I just let some tall nylon `weeds’ grow between the rails. I’d rather have the resistance localized at the places where I want cars to stand still, not all over the layout.
My “grade problem” is extremely slight - so slight that the typical non metal wheelset equipped car will stay put. But the Intermountain wheelsets, combined with the slippery Athearn BB trucks, just made parking the caboosssesss on the track almost an impossibility.
I tried 1/2 of a spring on the end of one axle and it helped some of the cars, but 1/2 on two axles did the trick for all of them. Note that the cars still roll easily, just not as easily as they did before.
I cut the springs by laying one on the workbench and pressing downward with a sharp xacto blade. I pulled the truck off the back of the caboose, and removed the two wheelsets. I placed one of the springs on the pointed end of a wheelset, and carefully balanced it there while putting that end into the truck first. Ha, I won’t lie to you, sometimes this was easy, other times it was like playing with minute grasshoppers.
Anyway, the thing worked out just fine, and now I won’t have cabooses fouling the mains…