Supposedly “Gold Series” with crap couplers and plastic wheels.
Observation is the permanent coupler bars hit the coupler box sides which levers the truck off the rails.
S bend from 24" radius to 24" radius without a transition straight. The situation in most yards.
Any solutions out there?
Not realigning our track. We have the same well cars in the higher (supposedly) Mainline version with decent couplers (Proto max) and steel wheels but not setup in three car units. They run fine although they are at the limits of our track. In fact our test for acceptable track alignment is the limits these cars present. These cars must run correctly before we spike our track down. We get some nice flange squealing but no derailments.
I’ve had some Walthers rolling stock that had the same issues on curves. Some judicious trimming of the steps (on cabooses) or careful trimming of the draft gear allows the wheels to swing side-to-side more.
An S curve is a derailment waiting to happen. It has to do with forces pushing or pulling in opposite directions. The recommendation for at least 40 years has been a straight section equal to the longest car you run between the curves. I suspect that the only solution would be to redo the curves particularly if they don’t derail anywhere else. 24" radius is a tght curve for most equipment
Sounds to me as if cutting back the sides of the coupler boxes slightly might be enough relief. You might need to fit a little more centering-spring action with that much mutual coupler swing in an S-curve.
The prototypical drawbar seems to be a square forging or casting based on the little I have found on the Internet. The model is inadequate gauge flat styrene which snaps far too easily. Walthers should have cast these from coupler plastic imho.
I’d rather not modify the standard coupler box and the prototype has an even narrower box.
I reversed and coupled the A and B units and they work fine as coupled with the stock EZ Mates. (EZ Mate II are vastly better as are Walthers Proto Max as fitted to our Mainline versions of these same cars, not in units. )
As a test I have fitted late versions of hook and horn couplers to the centre car C, in place of the drawbars, which provide more swing range in the coupler box and articulation in the centre of the “drawbar”. Using horn and hook sort of serves the unit character, albeit inaccurately.
If that works I intend to either fabricate a square section drawbar which will inherently allow more range of swing in the coupler box or perhaps remove material from the styrene drawbars along the exposed section to allow more swing. The stock drawbars are so weak in vertical bend I don’t think weakening them more will be material.
Thanks for the suggestions. I wonder if anyone else bought these units and has a fix that worked for them?
Yes, thanks for that reminder. This Walthers unit will certainly locate any inadequacies in our layout!!!
I learned about S curves in three ways: most valuably here on this forum, from Armstrong’s seminal book and by building a few and then rebuilding them to include a proper length transition straight.
I set up the S bend section I referred to only as a test track section in order to observe the cause of this derailment more accurately. I deliberately made it bad.
You can often push rolling stock by hand through an otherwise impossible S bend. Sure enough, my test bend revealed the drawbar levering the lead truck on the C unit out of the gauge every time. A 1 1/12 " transition straight was not enough to stop this but a 3" straight was. That’s pushing by hand. Hauling the same unit with a locomotive would require the transition straights of the lengths you recommend.
Now off to the layout to test the interim fix of using two couplers instead of the drawbar before going to the work of fabricating appropriate drawbars that will work.
This is a problem entirely of your own creation. You chose to install a medium radius S curve, and that is known to be problematic.
I also have S curves. To be sure everything will work, all equipment must be able to negotiate a 22 inch radius S curve coupled to an 86 foot high cube boxcar and a locomotive.
I have needed to get creative make all this work, and it is my own standard. I have never accepted derailments or any operational problems.
You will need to get creative as well. Have fun at the workbench.
When requesting assistance with problems like this, pictures are always a big help.
The S bend doesn’t exist on our layout, at least not obviously. I built a six to eight section S bend to induce the derailment as a test.
Fitting old fashioned hook and horn couplers solved the problem. Well, apart from coupler droop which caused semi automatic uncoupling but that’s an easy fix.
The problem is with Walthers design choice, the drawbars are too wide (and too flimsy anyway).
At least the general quality of the cars is pretty decent. The casting and main detail matches the later Mainline set we have of the same car but as individual coupled units. Except the couplers are inferior EZ Mate (the plastic “spring” version, not metal coil found in the much superior EZ Mate II or Protomax) and the wheels are plastic. Mainline is already upgraded by Walthers to include metal wheels, Protomax couplers and better detailing.
I’ll fabricate some better drawbars. New couplers and metal wheels… and we may as well have bought the mainline versions! There’s another thread out there about value for money and the increasing costs of this hobby. Well, you get what you pay for, no?
Mind you, it is handy to be able to drop the C unit out. Prototype railroads discovered the same thing. Is anyone still manufacturing connected or articulated unit well cars in the real World?
It occurs to me that the precise shape of this drawbar might be a useful guide for other modelers to use if they have to make one out of metal sheet … and you could draw this oversize as a template and post it. It’s also a logical target for some sort of 3D printing, although whether the result would be ‘tough’ enough for service itself or would be used as a guide or pattern is something I don’t know.
