In the gondola cargo thread, there was a reference made to removing the weights from the cars. Could someone enlighten this beginner as to the practice of weighting cars?
Cars have minimum recommended weight under NMRA standards to reduce operational problems (stringlining and so on). Check it out here:
http://www.nmra.org/standards/
The manufacturers don’t always get this right, so it’s common for people to squirrel away weights in hidden sections of their rolling stock (automotive wheel-balancing weights work pretty well, but there’s lots of other options).
Hope this helps!
Stu
Car falls off of track: It is not heavy enough.
Train will not go: car is too heavy.
I make my cars as heavy as possible as long as the trains can make the grades and hold to the schedule.
LION uses push-pull equipment, power can be anywhere in the consist, some of it is strung out and some of it runs buffed up.Gotta stay on the tracks. Him likes using printer’s slugs for weight, unfortunately, letterpress printing as gone the way of the steam engine.
Yes, Yes, LION node dat NMRA has standards, but LION has different reality. Him can only use stuff he finds around the zoo.
ROAR
The above mentioneds NMRA standard is a very good start. The object is to have a consistent weighting scheme. Box Cars, Stock Cars, Reefers & Covered Hoppers usually are no problem - there is lots of space inside the car body to add weight. I like to use the ‘stick-on’ weights from automotive supply outlets. Note that most of the weights are now steel, not lead and are larger than the lead balance weights. Some folks use old pennies as well.
Flat Cars & Gondolas can be tricky. I have been using #9 lead bird shot that I pour into the center sill, and sometimes around the under body to try to get them close to the spec. I use diluted Matte Medium to ‘glue’ the bird shot in place. It takes several saturation’s to get it all glued in place. I like to use Matte Medium as if dries sort of elastic, not rock hard like white glue. Loads can also be used to add weight. When using the lead bird shot, make sure you wash your hands after working on your models! And you can still find lead bird shot - In bulk it is about $40/25 lbs, plus shipping - You will have a ‘life-time’ supply(share it with your fellow modelers). I used to use #12 bird/snake shot - but I have not been able to find it in bulk anymore.
For open Hoppers, I fill the discharge bays with lead bird shot, covered with some loose HO coal, then saturate it with Matte Medium. It looks like the car was not completely cleaned out. Most of the time it still is not up to the ‘spec’, but it is close and a cast ‘load’ will be more than enough to bring it up to weight.
Tank Cars have their own special issues. While there is plenty of room insid
I have two Bachmann depressed center flat cars that were a bit shy of weight. To weight them I added Norscot Caterpillar equipment. Two 315CL excavators and a D5G bulldozer on one, two D5M bulldozers and a 315CL excavator on the other. Even though they were more than sufficiently weighted I still wasn’t happy and went for overkill. I disassembled the Cat equipment and pack all the available space with modeling clay then reassembled them. There would be a long heavy train behind these cars and I didn’t want them flipping over as they were prone to do as lightweights.
this is the method i use
http://www.micromark.com/html_pages/instructions/84016i/84016carweight.htm
I agree with Jonessy- those NMRA standards make more sense the more I rebuild and properly (as per NMRA) weight cars in my rolling stock inventory, now over 100 cars. I weigh the car as is, whether it is an already built Athearn BB, a NIB car, an old Kline I liked at that last swap meet, or even one of my newer Atlas RTR purchases. Then I add weight to bring it into compliance. The newer RTRs are generally close to the mark, but I have added weight on afew as well. I heartily recommend getting a nice digital scale (Harbor Freight has some inexpensive ones) to get accurate readings. I use lead fishing weights of 1/2, 3/4, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 oz sizes which I can hammer into nice flat blocks, or cut them as needed to get the right amount needed for weighting a car. Don’t be afraid of loads in a hopper or gondola or on a flat car. They can hide weights quite easily, if you are creative. Loads make these cars more visually interesting and remember, a car with a load pays its way on the railroad! Cedarwoodron
I never found the need for a fancy scale. An old diet scale i picked up at a rummage scale works fine for me as a weigh station. Do however weigh the cars as it does make a difference in performance.
I know I will be getting a lot of flack over this but I have a differing opinion on the NMRA RP for weighing rolling stock. First it is a recommendation and not a standard. Second it is antiquated at best. Born at a time when track was rudimentary and mass production was shaky in tolerance. Most ties were either wood or fiber that swelled and shrunk. Rolling stock had those giant flanges that could slice your grilled cheese sandwich with ease.
Concentrating on more important things is conducive to better overall performance. Track work, free rolling metal wheels in square trucks, properly adjusted and operating couplers, and a three point suspension is more important than tossing in a few ounces of lead to cover up a problem. Weighing your rolling stock to a consistent weight instead of by length of car would be operationally better. For example If I make up a local with a couple of 36 foot reefers in front of a couple of 72 foot coaches for a local milk / commuter run the coaches would out weigh the reefers by a considerable bunch. In front of those is an old 2-6-0 with a shorty tender that would weigh half of one coach. Now for example they all weigh 2 1/2 to 3 ounces then you would have a better chance of not pulling one of those light reefers off the rails. I have found that I need not add any more weight than what the manufacturer put in the kit to begin with. I do add free rolling metal wheels and make sure the car goes through my inspection and tuning track before it goes on the railroad.
Pete
I have used many things for weights in the past but when I ran out of things to use, I found U.S. Pennies to work great and low in cost. Between 10 and 15 pennies in a boxcar (if I remember correctly) to bring the standard weight up to NMRA spec.
For my Tichy 40 ft flat car, I had some lead wire pieces that I glued to the bottom of the trucks because there wasn’t enough room on the underframe (which has lots of detail). I only added as much as I could without being able to see it from typical low viewing angles (just in case some rivet counters get up close. lol).
Keep it as low as possible so you don’t raise the center of gravity too much. Washing your hands after handling lead is a good idea, or wear gloves (and still wash your hands).
In simple words, heavier cars are more likely to stay on the track, (less likely to derail). Heavy cars are harder for locomotives to drag up grades. The NMRA has published a Recommended Practice 20.1 for car weights which is a good compromise worked out by a lot of experienced model railroaders. For HO the rule of thumb is one ounce plus an additional 0.5 ounce for each inch of car length.
Most commercial models are light. A forty foot car ought to weigh 3.5 ounces. You will find most of 'em only weigh 2.5 ounces. Some weigh even less. There has been much criticism of RP 20.1 over the years, most of the critics call for a lighter weight standard. That probably works. The important thing is to have some standard. Light cars sandwiched inbetween heavy cars will be pulled off the track on curves, so you want all your cars weighted to the same standard, either your own or the NMRA standard.
For myself, I use RP 20.1 and it works well.
One more “aesthetic” aspect- a properly weighted car (in HO) makes a very satisfying clickety-clack as it travels on sectional track- just like the old days before welded rails. That is something that should not be overlooked in the process of weighting cars. Weighting also makes the cars seem less “toy-like” by giving them some “heft”, if that makes any sense. Cedarwoodron
Now this is just my opinion. But I have found that NMRA’s weight spec for HO is a tad too heavy for todays freight cars, and even those dating back to at least the late 80’s and 1990’s shake the box kits. I dont have much expierence with cars much older then the 1980s. Todays wheel sets and even older plastic kit wheel sets actually track quite well when they are in guage and a few members of our club believe they came up with the specification back when wheelsets very poor quality.
Most of my rail cars are kits, built with metal wheel sets, trucks tuned, etc. My idea when first starting out was to lighten up from the NMRA standards, and haven’t had a problem with derailments. But one thing I’ve noticed is that by bring the car weight up, the cars look more realistic rolling down the track. It eliminates the shake when going over a railgap or rolling thur a turnout. In other words a lightweight car will shake, a heaver one will roll a little, ( just like the prototype does over rough track ) then settles back down.
I have too many cars to weigh each one. If the car derails a couple times, for no apparent reason, then I weigh it and add weight. If it uncouples twice or more for no reason, I install Kadees. If it ain’t broke, I don’t try and fix it.
I have found that not weighting my cars will cause many more derailments and with 1100 cars this is not something I want happening when I have an OPs Session and there are 20 guys running my equipment.
I have also found on many of the other layouts I run on the weights have come loose in the cars causing more problems than not having any weight at all!
I don’t know that glue they use but I found that using Shoe Glue seems the best as I had used RTV Silicone and had some problems with the fumes given off by the RTV when curing was attacking the plastic.
This is why I changed over to Show Goo (available from Wal-Mart) It isn’t an RTV type of material and once it dries the wright is just about unremoveable - as I have had to do it and it is not fun!
At least my wights don’t come loose any more!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
Bob,
I have never heard of RTV fumes attacking plastic. The tube says that acetic acid fumes ‘evolves’ as the product cures. Now, the fumes from Walthers ‘Goo’ will attack plastic when confined in a freight car and it is not fully cured. I usually use automotive ‘stick-on’ weights,and run a dab of clear DAP silicone rubber sealant along the edges of the weights to insure that will not come loose sometime in the future. I must have over 300 ‘house’ cars and have never seen an issue. Of course, I usually ‘mass’ weight a number of cars as I work on them and it may be a day or two before I do final assembly of the cars. Any fumes should be long gone.
Loco1sa,
That is not an NMRA ‘RP’ - It is Standard S-8. I agree that with current technology, you can cheat the weight standard, but if you are going to reliably interchange your cars at the club - You need a common starting place. Poor couplers/weight/wheels are a recipe for disaster. We had a non-member ‘visit’ our club yesterday. Between his train coming apart, derailing, and shorting out power districts - we had lots of problems. During one of those derailment/power loss incidents, my train was in the same power district. The decoder in the trailing unit got ‘scrambled’ and became unresponsive. I took the unit off the train and had to reload the configuration from the Decoder Pro files - It then ran normal again. Another train lost control and we had to ‘pick up’ the units as they were moving. I had to do a factory RESET to one of the units to get it running again. Unpainted metal trucks with old wheels and all metal engines that are looking to ‘short out’ are no fun. And most of the cars were under 3 oz
I brought down 40+ cars to the club that had never been run before. All
Jim, I believe that you are incorrect on the standard vesus practice statement. Standard S-8 appears to have something to do with track centers. The weight recommendation is a recommended practice RP-20.1, http://www.nmra.org/standards/sandrp/rp-20_1.html.
That said, I agree with you 100% on your common starting point statement. It seems that every so often in this forum and in other places (i.e.: down at the club) someone comes up with their idea of what proper weighting method is. And there are always reasons why their method is “better”. So with 10 people, you get 10 “better” methods. In my opinion, it is much better to follow a recommended practice and get the desired commonality.
Personally, I find the NMRA recommendation just about right. With the recommended weights I’m not chasing light cars around the railroad when trying to couple to them, and I’m not trying to overload the cars with every piece of scrap metal I have laying around the basement.
The RP20.1 was developed when almost all kits and cars running had metal sprung trucks. (Athearn, Roundhouse, Silver Streak, etc.) Then the accepted method of fastening trucks to car bodies was to tighten the screws snugly, then back the screw off 1/4 to 1/2 turn. With the the heavier cars, this made the self-equalizing feature of the sprung trucks to function more smoothly, and the cars would thus ride over rough trackage better.
The 3-point method of truck mounting was put into play when solid side frames became popular.
Personally, being pretty much old-school in most things, I prefer the sprung trucks. And I try to weight my cars to the NMRA specs because they work. Of course having a layout with no grades helps… [:)]
Jim.
It is an RP. And I do interchange cars on the clubs layouts all the time. I also do not use traction tires or snot but do adjust and add weight to my locomotives. I also do a lot more important things to my rolling stock then stuffing weight into them. How many of you really follow the directions on the KD5 envelope? Do you burnish, shim, and use either greasum or graphite to lube them? Maybe this is why I don’t need to add a ton of weight to get my cars to couple? I also go a step further and weaken the centering springs so coupling is easier and never have to slam them. Sure I can weight my cars so I will need pushers on a 20 car train but I find it not necessary. I can also go up the clubs 38 foot long 2 percent grade with 2 steamers in front of 50 cars with 2 more steamers pushing on the rear. I can also stop this train on the grade and restart it too. I would love to add more cars but the runaround for the pushers to put the cabin back on the train is too short and the lead locos are already into the yard lead. The Helix down needs two more loops for a good 70 car train.
I do admit that some weight is OK but the NMRA RP is too much and should be revised and amended. Like I said. My 36 foot milk reefer would be nearly half the weight of the 70 foot coach behind it.
Pete