Have any of you had issues with sprung truck equipped rolling stock derailing? I only have a handful of cars with these, and every one of them derails[:O]. I’ve picked each one up used (maybe that’s why they unloaded them[:(]!). I’ve tried checking them every which way to see if there is some binding issues but cannot find anything. I’ve read a lot of todoo in the past about sprung trucks being so great and all, but my experience with them is frustrating to say the least. I’d like to run these cars rather than have them in my yard and am ready to replace them with good ol’ trouble free plastic trucks[:)]. I have no derailments with any other rolling stock or loco’s on this layout (except my Spectrum Shay on another track I wrote about earlier), only with each of these cars with sprung trucks. Ideas?
What brand trucks/cars are these used cars? I have old Varney & Mantua cars with sprung trucks and they came with ‘pizza cutter’ flanges on the wheels. All had to be replaced. I was able to replace just the wheel sets on some, and had to replace the entire trucks on others.
Also, what is the length and the weight on these cars? Many times they are too light as well.
Most of the original Train Miniature cars and later, the same ones from Walthers, came with sprung trucks. Some suffered from bad wheels (out-of-round or not square to the axle) but the trucks themselves also had issues with excess flash impeding the equalisation ability of the trucks. Bad wheels were easy enough to replace, but the trucks needed to be disassembled in order to remove the flash - it was worst on the bolster ends where they fit into the sideframes, and in the corresponding areas of the sideframes. Once cleaned up, those trucks perform very nicely.
The deep flanges on older cars only cause problems if they’re deep enough to bottom-out in the flangeways of turnouts.
Also check to ensure that the trucks can pivot freely, allowing the wheels to follow the track.
Jim and Wayne, thanks for the info. I’m not sure and will have to look on the car makes… as for the trucks, I wouldn’t know how to identify them. The weights, though not scaled, feel and seem appropriate compared to other cars that I have weighed in the past. I will have to also look at the weels closer, though nothing there has struck me as odd. The cars vary, a gondola, all metal and heavy, covered hopper, tank car which incidentally rolls very nicely, and a few others. Everything on each seems to be able to pivot freely- I’m not sure what all I’m to look at on these- they pivot freely between the car body and the truck, and the trucks themselves flex pretty freely too.
I will look again, maybe I’m missing something, and will focus again on pivots as well as looking closer to the wheels. Thanks guys and happy RR’ing!
Sprung trucks can become tweaked but it is easy to un-tweak them. Also check the tightness of the truck holding screws. Last, there are all kinds of quality in sprung trucks, some are complete garbage and others are great. The major disadvantage of sprung trucks that are of the great type is the screw holding them on has to be just right, too loose or too tight and you get derailments, alot more so than the non-sprung type, those type are more forgiving due to their ridgidness.
I have some American Flyer and Revell HO cars with sprung trucks. I have had them for over 50 years and i’ve never had any trouble with them. They still have their original sprung trucks and original plastic wheels. The trucks are metal and do need some lubing to keep them from binding on uneven track.
If they are Train-Miniature trucks, others have noted the issues. What I’ve noticed is that it’s the interface where the bolster slips into the sideframe, which sometimes sticks a little. As Doc W noted, check for flash there. But I think it’s also the case that sometimes they just are sticky without any obvious flash. I’ve got a few that work and a few more that I just ended up scrapping and replaced.
The big issue, at least in HO scale, is that the physics don’t really scale right. Usually, the car isn’t heavy enough to really compress the springs, even at NMRA-spec weight. I don’t know if anyone ever made “whimpy” springs for these trucks, but that might help. In any case, the HO springs just don’t act the way the 1:1 scale springs do.
I still have a few of those on my roster. I bought them back in the 1950s to early 1960s. Some have become so loose and sloppy that I’ve just replaced the trucks. Another thing that’s worked for me is a drop of CA glue. The trucks still have the springs in them, but they don’t flex anymore, and that seems to work better.
Your use of the word “TWEAK” is the opposite from what I have always understood tweak to mean! I doubt the word is defined in Funk & Wagnals and might be considered English “slang”. However, in the hobby of building models “Tweak” means attempting to adjust; or, fine tune, to make better, in persuit of being best!
Enough “Splitting Hairs” and if the rest of you feel that “Tweak” means to have “Un-tweaked” something, than once again the English Language has taken a bit of slang and “Morphed” it into something else, again!
My guess is the original poster has a wheel flange depth problem as has been suggested. All of the cars on my railroad now have metal wheels, mostly Proto 2000, with some Kadee, Branchline and Intermountain wheel sets. Sprung trucks are touted as being the best and should work the best on un-even track, so I doubt that is the O.P.'s problem.
Thank you all for the input and suggestions. As the train room is bit chilly this morning, after warming up a bit I am going to take some metal wheels from a good Athearn and try them in some of the cars, if I’m not seeing anything obvious first. I don’t know if flange depth would be an issue yet; the derailments are in random places, straight or curves, but none on turnouts.
This might be a silly question, I have seem the reference many times, but what is CA? The closest I can think is contact adhesive? Thanks!
My feeling has always been that it is probably more useful for HO trucks to be equalized than for them to be sprung, although some trucks that are neither equalized nor sprung can still track very well. Some brass locomotive tenders have trucks that are equalized but not sprung. Of course a brass engine tender is likely weighted far more than a freight car of similar length and thus should be expected to track better.
I took a quick look at one of these cars that I’ve been trying as I was in the room briefly for something else, but I did not see anything remarkable about the wheels or flanges. The flanges looked identical to any of the other cars surrounding it. What I did note was the wheels looked slightly larger, like maybe scale 36" compared to scale 33" surrounding it. Hard to tell as they are shiny silver metal next to black and weathered wheels around it. I will mic them later this morning but I don’t think that would cause a problem.
Personally, I don’t use sprung trucks, I have many empty ones (without wheels) I would trade to people who want them, for good ridged trucks. If interested, let me know and I will figure out how many I have.
Thank you for the offer. I’m nowhere near that fanatical about having them verses rigid- I liked the cars and they happened to have the trucks. With the problems I’ve encountered with the few I have, I will likely be staying with rigid myself and am fine with that. I may even CA one or two of them later after checking wheels and if they run fine afterwards then “woohoo”! As another poster mentioned and I have seen as well, they do tend to be sprung too heavy to realistically work I think.
On a side note, I am becoming more fanatical about metal wheels with the more I have read about them and experienced and they sound cool, so as spare funds come around I will be looking to get some sets and begin replacing! Fortunately about half my freight roster already has them!
Just to add a couple of things to some already good ideas.
Check the gauge of the wheels, you never know until you do if they’re OK.
Make sure the wheels aren’t offset from one axle to the next in the same truck(causes the truck to track a little sideways). A lot of times guys get the wheels in gauge, but have one axle with wheels more close to one side of the truck than the other. Try to make the wheels are not just in gauge but in the same axial position on the axle from wheelset to wheelset. Lube the axles and bolster/sideframe areas.
now that you have a jilllion things to check out, here is one more. even when the wheels are in gauge. (you do have a wheel and track gauge, don’t you?) sometimes they are offset with more axle exposed on one side than the other. this results in the truck being skewed and kind of “crabbing” down the track picking at every rail joint and switch.
Duane, if you decide to change-out the wheelsets for metal ones, you’ll need to rotate the sideframes on the bolsters to provide enough clearance to allow the wheelsets to be removed and new ones installed. If there’s a problem with flash in the areas mentioned, there’s a good chance that the sideframe won’t return to its original level-to-the-track alignment when you release it. If that’s the case, new wheelsets won’t cure the problem.
It’s interesting that you like the sound of metal wheelsets. To me, that’s the thing which I dislike most about them, and a long train can be distractingly noisy. I don’t find the sound to be at all like the real ones. [swg]
I don’t purposely change out plastic wheels for metal ones, and if I have faulty ones, usually replace them with better quality plastic ones. Of course, nowadays, many cars are already equipped with metal wheels, and while the shininess of the treads is certainly prototypical, it also draws attention to the fact that the treads are grossly over-wide.
As for the arguement that plastic wheels promote dirty track, I haven’t found this to be the case - I don’t clean track unless I’ve recently ballasted or applied scenic ground cover nearby.
Alright, after some checking earlier today, between animals and a horribly sick wife, I found some interesting things. To Charlie9 (and all others)… this is embarrasing to say but no, I do not have a gauge, and am finding more and more need for it. I have checked wheels by looking at them closely and seeing how they track, whether high up and almost on flanges, or low and almost falling between rails. When I have issues, I will readjust the wheel until the car runs good, which took care of one car today- the wheels on the problem axle were too wide.
I have found other trucks that I believe might be sticky between the frame and bolsters, but not actually having a known “good set” to compare too, I am blind on this one. Maybe some CA…
On a heavy, all metal gondola (with no mfgr anywhere I see), I ended up swapping to rigid plastic trucks from an old busted Athearn box car. Gondola is now in service[;)]. Ironically, this same metal set ended up going on a very light plastic gondola missing a truck, and they run great on that car[*-)].
In the process, I found and fixed some other issues with a few other freight cars, and overall am pleased with the results. I don’t have all the metal trucks in service but feel I am more armed to find their problems with everyone’s help. Thank you all!!
ps- yes, I am getting a gauge soon, until then, the mic and eyeballs will be used more frequently!