I was told to add more weight to train cars being pull.
is that to keep them from falling of track? what if I want to have a long line of cars pull, does the front cars need wight to keep on track than cars in back?
any of you add weight to the cars at all? how does that help out? I am looking at having a long line of cars some like 15 somthing maybe 20… pulling by two genesis disesl engines like SD70I or SD70M…
my turns on track will be 22 inch or more.
The weight helps the train pull through curves and turnouts more smoothly. The NMRA has standards for this (by scale) which are usually expressed as N ounces + m ounces per inch of car.
The standards were established so that everyone in the country could bring cars to someone else’s layout and they would run together. IF you are sticking to your own layout, you could get away with greater or lesser weights AS LONG AS YOU ARE CONSISTENT.
You will get problems if you put a lot of light plastic cars at the front of your train and put a brass caboose on the rear.
Now who would do such a stupid thing? it’s either all brass or all plastic, except the engine (which should be brass if all the cars are brass, otherwise it doesn’t matter)
I’ve heard of some people who add either more or less weight than the NMRA recomendations, and have no problems. I even read on the Atlas forum whher a guy said he doesn’t add any weight to his cars and has NO problems at all!
Steve:
There are several threads in this forum regarding appropriate weight for rollingstock, you could consult them if you care to. Also you might have a look at the NMRA website for the recommended weights.
Randy
The biggest problem is pull off on the curves if you have heavy cars at the back with light ones at the front. The sharper the curve and the longer the train the greater the chance. Good trackwork, slow speeds as well as weight help with this problem. The prototypical solution would be to reverse bank the curves (outer rail lower), but this was very rarely used and only then on freight only, slow speed curves not the mainlines we run. The NMRA ran tests years ago to determine the optimum weight so do check their page as Randy suggested.
Enjoy
Paul
NMRA RP: http://www.nmra.org/standards/consist.html#standards and then scroll down to RP20.1
This is not the only solution, but it is one that has prooven itself over several decades.
I don’t usually bother weighting my cars - haven’t had any trouble. The only ones I bother to add ballast to are double-stack container cars - I use a slab of lead in the bottom of each lower container. This improves running and also reduces wobbling!
I’ve run into an interesting problem with a lack of haulage capacity in my locos as a result of this however. I suspect that 2 5-unit double stacks, one 3 car drawbar double-stack, two walthers 5-unit spine cars and an Athearn Impack may be about the limit for a pair of Athearn Dash-9/AC4400s. Am i right in assuming that this is a far shorter train than prototype examples?
I do not weigh my cars to RP20.1 as I feel todays cars does not need the extra weigh as they once did 50 years ago when most cars lacked any weight or was built from a wooden kit.I just use the weight that comes with the car…The club I belong to does not use RP20.1.We do however use metal wheels.[:D] We don’t have any problems even when we run our normal 50 car trains and when we hump cars at our working hump yard.
It is my and others opinion that by using metal wheels it puts the weight where it should be on the rail…Now cars like stack cars, impact or front runners then we feel that some weight should be added but no more then the common weight that comes with a car kit.[^]
Now as food for thought…I have read on various forums where a modeler complains because his newest pride and joy won’t pull 5 cars up a 2% grade.If his/her cars are weigh to RP20.1 then I wonder why? You see all that unneeded extra weigh cuts down on the pulling power of a locomotive so instead of calling that locomotive piece of junk perhaps they should look into the heart of the problem…[:D]
If you plan on running them on someone else’s layout or a club. Then put on metal wheels, Kadees at the proper height and weight them to the NMRA standards for length. If not, then I wouldn’t bother unless they give you problems. If you do start though, best to do them all. The weight mix match may create new problems as mentioned with lighter cars ahead. Me personally, most of my rolling stock eventually makes it to the club so I groom them. But some…like my MOW stuff and some odd ball cats and dogs, heck they’ll be lucky just to get metal wheels and Kadees (since they’re not for interchange service anyway[:)])