I have started running my HO Con Cor passenger cars again. They are the 70 foot Santa Fe Valley Flyer smooth side cars. I have added weight, Kadee pocket couplers with #29 and all metal wheel sets. I retired them a year ago because I could not keep them coupled. I used glue to hold the top of the pockets on, and there was to much movement and they would come uncoupled sometime.
I have redone the coupler boxes and added screws to hold the lid on. OK, they are fixed and off I went! For a while? Took a few hours of run time for the problem to crop up.
Now for some reason the second car derails. I run two express Baggage cars and one Post offices car at the front of the train. No matter which one is the second car from the engine, it derails? It is at the same spot of the track, but why the second car? All couplers move freely.
I have been using either a PK E-7 or a PK Erie Built, both have long shank couplers.
Wheels are in gauge,and the wheel flanges look straight across when I check them on the side.
I too have Con-Cor passenger cars. They derailed all the time, I would also like to add that they are the 85 foot aluminum corrugated side VIA coaches.
The trucks on my coaches were mounted quite rigid. When loosening the screw underneath the body that held the truck in place there still was no sideways rocking motion. To fix this issue the truck was removed, a 1/4 inch new steel drill bit was twisted by hand gouging out the hole where the screw sits on the truck that attaches it to the body of the car. Basically I reamed out the plastic from the truck where the head of the screw is. This now gives the trucks sideways motion and no more derailments.
I also have 4 ConCor HO passenger cars that I “retired” due to derailments. When I brought this problem up to the owner of our LHS (I got them from another store in Evansville), he said the trucks were defective and should be replaced. I have not done so yet, and will try the fix Frank described above. If that doesn’t do it I’ll replace the trucks at some point; I have other fish to fry at the moment. So apparently ConCor has a reputation for bad trucks.
Ken, I had the same problem at one time. My reasoning is that the first passenger car, coupled to the engine will be “pulled” by the sheer weight of the engine and will not derail, but the second car is pulled by the lightweight passenger car in front of it and is prone to derailment because of imbalancing which is typical of Con Cor cars. The rest of the passenger cars don’t derail because there are few external forces exerting pressure on them, so they just follow suit. Didn’t matter which car was second in the string, it derailed.
I own a set of 72’ New York Central cars. I was desperate for a set of two tone gray NYC passenger cars
Very interesting discussion. I have two HO scale Con-Cor smooth side Illinois Central passenger cars that I just permanently retired as shelf queens because I could never keep them on the track, no matter what I tried – extra weight, different trucks, metal wheelsets, body mounted couplers, etc.
OTOH, a Con-Cor heavyweight passenger car has never given me any problems. Go figure.
I was beginning to think running the IC roadname way out west was a jinx. [:-^]
The early Con_cor trucks were very soft plastic. The wheel set could cut a slot in the side frame allowing the side frame to touch the rail head. Just one more place to look!
Rich, that made me feel better, knowing I am not the only one that has the problem.
The car derails on a straight section going to a turn, not in the turn and it is running into a turnout. In other words it is coming in from the end that does not have the blades. Car is 10 inch long and weighs 6.5/8 onces so I am a little over weight, I mean the car! [:D] Trucks do have side to side rocking. I have modified the mounting points on some of the cars, I hate the plastic push pins.
Jeff, when I turn the car back wards it changes where it derails. With that in mind I flipped the wheel sets over, but it still derails.
Rich, I made my own mounting pads for the Kadee pockets.
Now what is odd, is when I first redone the bad pockets the cars tracked great, except one of the Baggage cars, so I pulled it. I got about 5 hours out of them before this problem pooped up. I guess I could have worn out the sides of the trucks. But, the wheel flanges still look straight across to me when I check them.
Tonight, I will run them again and get up close to where they derail and see if I can see what is happing.
This is a real puzzler of a problem. I agree that ConCor cars have cheap trucks but even that makes it hard to explain this weird sequence of problems. I agree with Rich that as you state the facts the cause is likely to be somewhere in the relationship of the first car to the locomotive, assuming the first car is also one of these ConCors. If there is not enough side play in that initial coupling the first car may stay on the rails but the sideways force may felt mainly by the second car. Sort of like how a locomotive may have a minimum radius but may not be able to be coupled to a train through that radius due to overhang of the rear coupler on curves.
From a pure trouble shooting aspect: What if there is no locomotive pulling the train, what if you are pulling it with a string or it is just rolling on its own through the curve? Same problem? If so, my theory is incorrect.
What happens if an ordinary boxcar is the first car after the locomotive? Is it still the (now) third car that details? The only other guess (and this is also based on some familiarity with Con Cor passenger cars) is that sometimes the floors have a subtle warp in the casting, which again might transmit the skewed force into the following cars.
Sometimes there is just something goofy about the design interactions of a given ca
If you made your own mounting pads, that should be fine. There is nothing magic about Jay Bee pads other than they were made specifically to replace the truck mounted couplers.
As to the couplers, I did a lot of experimenting before I settled on the Kadee #38.
Just out of curiosity, what type of metal trucks are you using
I too have a number of ConCor heavy and streamline passnger cars ( all 72’) Did have some problems but all of mine have been solved easily with just weight, other than one heavyweight coach. They are all a little higher in weight than the NMRA standard and are working great. The one heavyweight just does not want to be pushed through a couple of turnouts. Still working on that one.
I feel your pain! The cheap-o Rapidos on my Con-Cor smoothside passenger set (N scale) uncouple constantly! I’ll be replacing them all with MT trucks & couplers in a week or two, until then they stay boxed. What a headache… but buck up! There’s always someone around to sell you parts for something that should have been built better to begin with! (sarcasm intended)
Again, thanks for all the answers. Little shocked to see so many I will add. Tonight, I just let them site, they do that great! [:D] I have other problems I am working on.
Rich, all but one car has there stock truck’s, but they all have metal wheel sets, either stock or Protos. One of the express cars does have aftermarket truck’s, when I opened it at K-10 Model Trains car only had 1 truck! There is QC to be proud of!
Fas as mounting the Truck’s, I will post some pictures latter. Some of the newer cars came with screws, that screwed into a round standing up weight in the car body. As the pins broke or fell out I used self tapping screws with wide shoulders. They rock side to side and back and fourth. Some of the cars in the rear have this set up and track well.
Next I will try swapping trucks from the rear cars that have no problem.
Rich, do the # 38 have a .505 shank like the # 29 I used?
If I can get 32 Tyco Old Dutch Hoppers to track right, these should not beat me!
I missed something in your original post. When you said all metal wheel sets, I mistakenly read it to say metal trucks. If your passenger cars still have the original plastic trucks, I would place my money on the trucks as the problem. Intuitively, most people figure that faulty trucks cause derailments and poor track work cause uncouplings. But, in my experience, a lot of unwanted uncoupling problems are caused by faulty trucks or, in some instances, the wrong couplers.
If I were you, I would replace the plastic trucks with metal tracks. Those Con Cor plastic trucks are incapable of tracking through turnouts or curved track under 40" radius. They are too light and often out o
I pulled the first 3 cars, 2 express baggage and one postal car and they are tracking great. I have been running them for a hour now. Now the question is because the trucks are bad on the other cars, or is it due to less weight being pulled?
I did go by K-10 Model Trains which is open to 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve! Picked up some PK 36 wheels sets (the three cars are still running the stock wheels) and see if that helps.
while I was at K-10 Model Trains I did look at IHC trucks, none looked right far as mounting points off set.
