I have had great success in my track laying to a point where a derailment of any kind is something of note. Imagine to my suprise when I noticed the lead driver on my C&O 2-10-4 coming off the rails and going back on all on its own three or four feet later.
I looked and looked at the spot where it was coming off, got out the track gauge. I ran my fingers up and down and couldn’t feel a thing. Nothing! Today I was bound and determined to route out the cause. Out comes the very powerful magnifying glass ( you know the one for high mileage eyes) And behold the source of my grief! A week or two previously I had dropped a paint brush and some paint splattered. A tiny little drop of paint, smaller than the head of a pin, had landed on the rail. The colour was such, it was hard to spot on the steel. Also it dried so hard I couldn’t scrape it off, I had to use a file. Once removed, smooth as silk and no more problems.
It just goes to show the smallest things can cause big problems.
It could have been a sharp needle point and I’d have never felt it with my fingers. I use the edge of a craft stick. If it hangs up on something that spot gets an extra close look.
I’ve had similar misadventures, usually caused when the soldering tool left a tiny speck of its tip tin on the railhead after I used it to solder a drop. What’s really frustrating is when the derailment happens a couple of meters beyond the point where the flange started riding the railhead…
That soldering tool died recently. It remains to be determined if its replacement will do anything similar.
My hands are pretty rough right now. I think sliding something along the rail is a good idea. Although in this instance it was a very small bump and it may have slid right over. I think the fact that the speck was so rock hard had a lot to do with it.
I don’t doubt you, but I am having a hard time believing that a spot of dried paint could cause a driver wheel, of all things, to lift up off the rail. You sure about that?
A 35 car freight pulled by two Atlas Trainmasters was unaffected as were the eleven Rapido coaches being pulled by the BLI 2-10-4 that was having the problems. If there was another reason for the front driver lifting off it disappeared when the paint spot did.
As far as it rerailing itself, it did it every time without fail. Out of a gentle right turn where the driver would come off through a two foot straight stretch and would go back on as it went into a gentle left.
Hey I still consider myself a rookie at this game, so there are probably factors coming into play that I am still unaware of. Maybe the wheels on the loco need a tune up. Other than for lubrication I have yet to dismantle or make any serious adjustments or repairs to the four HO locos that I own.[:)]