Superior & Seattle Railroad Build

[John B]

I bought the Proxxon Chop and Mitre Saw.  Don't use it very much; but when you need it, it is good to have on hand

[S&S RR]

I bought the Proxxon Chop and Mitre Saw.  Don't use it very much; but when you need it, it is good to have on hand

John

Now that I'm back working on structures my saw is getting lots of use.  I will soon be building 7 trestles and I know it will get a workout with that project. Thanks for following the thread.

[ACL1504]

John,

I've done all of the above to get my heavyweights to run smooth.

I use the "push" test forward and backward as well as using motive power, after all, I won't be pushing by hand when actually running the trains.

I also use the tool from Micro-Mart, well one like it anyway. It works on the passenger and freight car trucks. It does remove some very small flash and pieces of metal that sticks to some of the Walthers heavyweight trucks.

On the heavyweights I've even cut into the uinderframe rib so the trucks swing more freely!

Over the years I've found that it's just easier to fix the cars prior to putting them on the track. It takes more time but well worth the effort in the long run.

My 5 cents worth!

Tom

[S&S RR]

John,

I've done all of the above to get my heavyweights to run smooth.

I use the "push" test forward and backward as well as using motive power, after all, I won't be pushing by hand when actually running the trains.

I also use the tool from Micro-Mart, well one like it anyway. It works on the passenger and freight car trucks. It does remove some very small flash and pieces of metal that sticks to some of the Walthers heavyweight trucks.

On the heavyweights I've even cut into the uinderframe rib so the trucks swing more freely!

Over the years I've found that it's just easier to fix the cars prior to putting them on the track. It takes more time but well worth the effort in the long run.

My 5 cents worth!

Tom

Tom

Thanks for the input - I did many tests with my string of passenger cars today - the train was made up of 6-60 foot passengers cars right out of the box, and 3 - 85 foot Pullmans that had been tuned.  Running with DC power the forward test went great. In the big looping turn a 48 inch radius curve proved to much for the 3 wheel trucks in reverse mode with the complete train - too much side thrust. With 6 cars I had no problems.  It could be that RTR right out of the box cars had issues that were causing drag.  Any way I was happy with the way the track performed.  Here are a few pictures of the testing.  It sure was nice to see a train running on the layout.







As you can see, the tools and the "code cart" were ready just in case during the testing.

[ACL1504]

John, 
You mean that even on a 48" radius the cars performed poorly in backing? Wow, I never would have figured that!
The side thrust  is what caused my problems in reverse. On the early Walthers heavyweights the coupler pockets were square and the end of three wheel truck hit the pocket and restricted the turn of the truck. I shaved some off the corner of the pocket and this helped. Walthers eventually realized the problem as the newer passenger cars have the corners notched/rounded off. Check your cars and see if this applies to your cars.

Tom

The mountains are massive and they look very natural. The GN looks natural along side as well. Love those photos.

Tom

[S&S RR]

Tom

The track in this area completely wraps around so all 9 cars were in the curve at the same time and the trucks had not been tuned on 6 of the 9 cars.  Normal size - mountain railroad passenger trains of 4 cars went through fine in both the reverse and forward modes. I will check the cars and tune them up before I test with them in other areas.  Thanks again.

[deemery]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

[ACL1504]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

Dave,

That's a great idea but you still need the coupler pocket and the center sill in place to see if the trucks are being jambed by them as well.

I would show pictures of what I did to mine but they are still packed away!

Tom

[S&S RR]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

Dave

Great minds think alike - I have one of the clear acrylic cars with 4 wheel trucks and earlier in the week I took the 6 wheel trucks off one of the passenger cars and mounted them on the clear acrylic car.  It works well for finding areas where there are bumps in the track that may bridge the 6 wheel trucks but the issue with my layout was long radii where the side thrust gets real high because of the length of the cars and then the 6 wheel trucks tend to ride up the flange and derail. This will not be an issue for short trains and since my layout is a mountain railroad I think I will be fine. 

[S&S RR]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

Dave,

That's a great idea but you still need the coupler pocket and the center sill in place to see if the trucks are being jambed by them as well.

I would show pictures of what I did to mine but they are still packed away!

Tom

Tom 

I followed up and I do have clearance issues with these new cars.  Another issue is that some of the cars have 6 wheel trucks and some have 4 wheel trucks so the pivot point is different. I noticed that most of the problems where with the 6 wheel trucks when they were coupled to a car with 4 wheel trucks. I will tune these cars before they go on the layout - for now it's back to laying and wiring track.

[deemery]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

Dave

Great minds think alike - I have one of the clear acrylic cars with 4 wheel trucks and earlier in the week I took the 6 wheel trucks off one of the passenger cars and mounted them on the clear acrylic car.  It works well for finding areas where there are bumps in the track that may bridge the 6 wheel trucks but the issue with my layout was long radii where the side thrust gets real high because of the length of the cars and then the 6 wheel trucks tend to ride up the flange and derail. This will not be an issue for short trains and since my layout is a mountain railroad I think I will be fine.

My "contribution" is the idea to make the acrylic body as long as the longest car on the layout, e.g. 80' if that's what you run.  It's interesting that the combination of 6 wheel and 4 wheel cars cause problems. 


Thinking about this from a manufacturing perspective, the big thing is "ripping" acrylic to the appropriate width, so you can cut off appropriate lengths.  A kit for the "AS-backwards test cars" would need to include amounts of acrylic strip of the appropriate width and bolsters that are glued to the strip once it's cut to the length you need.  Modeler decides where to glue the bolsters (the truck pivot point is a key decision!), glues them on, then drills and taps for both truck screws and coupler mounting boxes.


dave

[S&S RR]

The "6 wheel truck AS-backwards test" has me thinking:  What about a track test car made of acrylic, that's as long as my longest car, with some 6-wheel trucks?  Moving that back-and-forth (by hand and by loco) might be a very good way to inspect track.


dave

Dave

This would be a good thing to have - I would also make it wide enough with gauges to make sure there was enough clearance for the scenery along the rails. A prototype just might show up on the Superior & Seattle.

Great minds think alike - I have one of the clear acrylic cars with 4 wheel trucks and earlier in the week I took the 6 wheel trucks off one of the passenger cars and mounted them on the clear acrylic car.  It works well for finding areas where there are bumps in the track that may bridge the 6 wheel trucks but the issue with my layout was long radii where the side thrust gets real high because of the length of the cars and then the 6 wheel trucks tend to ride up the flange and derail. This will not be an issue for short trains and since my layout is a mountain railroad I think I will be fine.

My "contribution" is the idea to make the acrylic body as long as the longest car on the layout, e.g. 80' if that's what you run.  It's interesting that the combination of 6 wheel and 4 wheel cars cause problems. 


Thinking about this from a manufacturing perspective, the big thing is "ripping" acrylic to the appropriate width, so you can cut off appropriate lengths.  A kit for the "AS-backwards test cars" would need to include amounts of acrylic strip of the appropriate width and bolsters that are glued to the strip once it's cut to the length you need.  Modeler decides where to glue the bolsters (the truck pivot point is a key decision!), glues them on, then drills and taps for both truck screws and coupler mounting boxes.


dave

[Twist67]

Hi there,
nice progress on your layout.....the rockwork is fantastic...

Regards,Chris

[S&S RR]

Hi there,
nice progress on your layout.....the rockwork is fantastic...

Regards,Chris

Chris

Thanks for the kind words and for watching the thread. I'm looking forward to getting the track work done so I can start doing the detail work.

[deemery]

One more thought for the "AS-backwards test car" - Mount a clearance gauge on it, to check lateral clearances, height, etc.  You'd probably want a way to mount that on the end of the car where the swing on a curve would be greatest.


dave