lead shot

I've drilled a hole (out of sight under a truck) and poured in lead shot.  NOT a really good idea, as it tends to roll about  when the car is handled.  I've also tried doing it with bits of solder.  A little less shifting, but still not the best answer.

David

weights

Mr. JoeF "weighed" in on this subject several years ago.  Although his approach was for tank cars, if your car body is tight/stiff enough...(no gaps between sides and floor)..I think this plaster idea would work.

I can't wait to try this.  Great idea.  His comments in this thread linked below.

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/5078

Got ya covered!

You have an Intermountain boxcar, and good news for you, is that Intermountain has instruction sheets for almost all of their product, and that includes exploded views! w00t!

So, head on over to their instructions sheets, find the car you bought, and take a look. The exploaded views are fantastic for figuring out, not only how to take the car apart, but, to put them back together again! (I find that to be rather important information)

So here's a link to the site: http://www.intermountain-railway.com/customerservice/cshoinstructions.html
 

Desperation

If the assemblers were too free with the glue that day and you can't get into the car without ruining it, sand is cheap, will flow through a small hole, and can be easily shaken down to distribute an even layer. It's also inert and won't roll around like lead shot.

Remove roof

I've done these cars and have been able to carefully pry the roof off to do so. But as mentioned, sometimes these are over-glued making it tough. If so, I'd try the drill from below route. I've done that on covered hoppers, opening a slot actually that I then fed pennies into. Then I shot some acrylic latex caulk in and shook things a bit to disperse, settle and coat the pennies. Has worked well.

Mike McNamara

Delran, NJ

Avoid weight that can move around

One of the tests for stability I’m documenting in the new book on Rolling Stock I'm writing is how well a car will upright itself when you tip it. I use a protractor and test the angle. A good car must upright itself when tipped to at least 30 degrees off vertical. The La Mesa club does this test on all their rolling stock and anything that doesn’t pass the tipping test doesn’t go on the railroad.

If you put weight that moves around like loose lead shot or sand (someone suggested sand for weighting tank cars), when you tip the car, the weight will shift, THROWING the car off the track.

You want weight that does NOT shift, and for that I use plaster — very watery plaster, like skim milk. Drill a hole in the bottom, pour it in, then plug the hole with clay and turn the car upright and let the plaster set up. I tap the bottom of the car a few times on my finger to make sure the plaster is settled in. Plaster setting is a chemical reaction so sealing the car will not affect its hardening.

By using plaster, placing the car upright and allowing it to set up, the weight will not move around and make the car unstable if it’s ever tipped.

stable to 30 degrees?

What operating situation requires a 30 degree sideways tip? Unless one is operating an O-27 layout at hyper speed I can't see any reason for a car tipping more than superelevation cross slope? .....DaveB

It's not the test, it's what it tells you about the car

The tipping test reveals car behaviors beyond just the tip itself. For example, when the car is tipped to 30 degrees and released, does it upright itself or does it go upright then over-correct and flop over the other way onto its side? Or does it just stay tipped (fall on over) and fail to upright itself at all?

One La Mesa club member I have talked to said the tip test reveals basic car stability on the rails. Cars that fail the test tend to be more derailment prone. Cars that are too light tend to fail the test, as do cars with weight up too high like tank cars. So it reveals derailment-tendencies.

It's what the test reveals, not that cars routinely get tipped to 30 degrees in normal ops. It's like when the doctor pokes you somewhere and you holler. It's not that poking is normal, it's a way to reveal other problems.

Curious

Is there any fear of the heat normally generated by hardening plaster doing harm to the cars?Or is it so minimal that is of no consequence?

Thsi is a video (one hour)

This is a video (one hour) that covers what Joe is refering too and a whole bunch of other things. Very informative, and surprising. I assumed they would over-weight their cars as well as everything runs out there. 

Not a problem

Plastic deforming starts at about 180 F. Plaster setting can get to 140 F, which is not enough to deform plastic. Boiling water, which is a trick often used to bend plastic, is 220 F.

So no, not a problem.

Car weights and tilt

La Mesa Club car weights are roughly equivalent to NMRA RP 20.1.  There is allowance for some heavier cars, such as those made of brass or cast metal.

Tilt is an indirect measure of the Center of Gravity of the car.  CG is desired to be as low as possible.

Both weight and CG are related to the operating conditions on Tehachapi -- long trains, long 2.5% grades, and lots of 48R curves.

Experience, along with references like the cited RP, was used to develop the club parameters.  Experience has also proved that these parameters work quite well.  For example, one of the trains regularly run uphill during TTTO ops consist of 64 cars with a lead loco and 3 helpers.  When there are enough operators, this train is crewed with 4 engineers and a conductor.  The parameters permit highly reliable operation even with variations in the slack.

Stringlining

Yes, cars that pass the tilt test will be much less likely to stringline, for example. Cars that will not correct from a 30 degree tilt show a strong tendency to falling over easily, making them prime candidates for stringlining on long trains with helpers.

Stringlining will occur when the train is long and heavy and it's on a curve that's on a grade. The cars (especially those near the front of the train) will try to tilt inward and jump the rails, taking a straight "string line" type path shortcutting the curve. If the cars tilt enough inward, they will fall off the rails to the inside and pull other cars off with them.

I run trains with helpers on the Siskiyou Line, so this tendency to tilt versus resist tilting and stay upriight matters a lot.

" long trains, long 2.5%

   The long trains are something the average home layout doesn't have so a 30 degree tilt test is probably overkill for most folks. Stringlining is mostly related to rolling characteristicts of the cars and the distribution of heavier/lighter weight cars in a train. If all your cars are free rolling and all light weight or all  heavy weight there's less chance of stringlining. The only real cars I've seen stringlined in person were empty intermodal cars placed near the front of a long train on Tehachapi , they stringlined in the tunnel just above the loop.Those are some of the lowest center of gravity cars on the rails so the 30 % test wouldn't have helped them :> ) ......DaveB

Sand in tank cars

Joe makes good points about making sure the weight does not shift.

In my tank cars that have sand added, I have essentially filled them completely resulting in a car that weighs 7.5oz (I love how they feel with this weight, solid). [Yes, I am what some call an over-weighter, but I feel it is proper weight ] No issue there with shifting, but if you want a lower weight, good idea to heed Joe's advice and perhaps use plaster.

Mike McNamara

Delran, NJ