The top problems on the BCSJ

The top problems on the BCSJ when it comes to rolling stock are:

1. Athearn cars with the metal clip holding the pocket together. Either the clip fell off or is in the process of falling off allowing the couplers to droop. The solution is to either put a small screw through the lid of the metal clip to keep it in place or to remove the coupler pocket and replace it with something more robust (like a Kadee).

2. Older Accurail cars where the trucks are held in place by bolster pins. The pins fall out and may wedge between the trucks and the ties causing a derailment. Or if there's no immediate derailment, these cars may survive multiple op sessions before the car and truck becomes separated...  The solution is to replace the bolster pins with a screw (2-56).

3. Older Accurail cars didn't have screws to hold the lids on the couple pockets. These could work loose if just pressed in place resulting in drooping (or missing couplers). The cure is to either screw the lids in place with a small screw or since I'm using Kadee couplers which are generally ultra reliable (don't break except for the knuckle spring disappering once in a blue moon) use a TINY amount of glue to encourage the coupler pocket lid to stay in place.

4. Some of my older Intermountain tank cars came with a plastic Kadee compatilbe glued into the coupler box. Ugh. These couplers used a plastic 'tang' to hold the knuckles closed. But when these cars are left in a train with the slack in the couplers compressed (so the knuckles are trying to be open) the plastic tang 'remembers' it's open position resulting in a break in two when the slack is removed from the train (such as by an engine trying to make off with the train). Solution: UGH - the reason I still have some of these is the detail on these cars is so freakin' delicate that turning them upside down, even in a very soft car cushion (foam) wrecks havoc on them. ANd the MORONS that selected these couples THOROUGHLY glued to coupler pocket closes so it takes some major prying to get the lids off the pockets and remove the couplers. My advice is to check ALL RTR rolling stock before purchase to ensure that the couplers are at the right height, swing side to side properly, that the knuckles open and close properly, and that there is a METAL knuckle spring. Plastic tang couplers disqualify a purchase on the BCSJ if the coupler pocket is glued closed.

NOTE: I wrote to Intermountain with my frustrations some time ago and they were no longer using the plastic tang couplers with their HO RTR stuff so more recent models shouldn't have this issue.

Cheers,

Charlie

"digitally tested for rolling

"digitally tested for rolling quality (ok, we spun them with our fingers)"

LOL!

I tell people we have digital dishwashers at home.  They just don't get it until I wiggle my fingers.

Old cars, new wheels

As I have just gotten back into the hobby, I have a fleet of mostly old cars.  The majority of them are in good shape, but a few are trouble makers.  How do I tell if new wheels are the answer, or new trucks are needed?  Will metal wheelsets from one manufacturer fit another or do I have to get them from each? 

My five car passenger train was givng me trouble, so I cleaned the wheels and loosened the truck tension.  It helped, but the coach in the 4 position still derailed at the same swicth.  I turned just that car around and it stopped derailing.  Any thoughts as to why changeing direction of the car helped?

Thanks guys.

You'll need - The Tool

http://tinyurl.com/yyongf

From Micro-Mark:

Our Truck Tuner reconditions your HO gauge railroad truck bearings so cars roll smoother with less friction. Simply insert the tool in place of a wheelset and rotate the shank. Truck Tuner's extra-sharp tool-steel cutter reshapes the bearing to the NMRA's recommended 60 degree contour and cleans out burrs and grime. Repeat for all bearings and your car is ready to really roll. Increases train lengths that locomotives can pull by up to 20 percent! For HO standard gauge trucks only.

I recommned replacing any plastic wheels with metal ones. It helps keep the crud levels down.

As for why turning the car around may have helped - it's possible that the leading (now trailing) axle/wheels was the problem. Following is a lot easier than being first.

Yep, know why turning around helped

The reason turning around helped is because the flanges in one of the trucks are attacking the railhead at a slight angle. By flipping the car around, you completely changed the angle of attack.

Ideally, the wheels roll so that the flanges are completely parallel to the railhead. If the wheels are canted at a slight angle towards the railhead, the flanges will find every imperfection in your track and climb the railhead. If the wheels are angled away from the railhead, the effect is less, but you will still have problems.

I recommend you turn the car back around and then study the derailment up close - figure out which truck is the problem. Now turn just that truck around. You will also find that probably improves things, just as turning the car around helped.

If you study the truck very closely, the wheels are probably all in gauge (I assume you checked that), but you will find one of the wheelsets has the wheels at a slightly different location from the end of the axle. When this happens, the truck marches down the track at an angle, causing derailments.

Turning the one bad wheelset around would also probably also improve things.

If all else fails and the car still misbehaves, I start by replacing all the wheelsets in that truck. If that doesn't help, then I replace the entire truck.

The other thing you mentioned is a derailment always at the same turnout. That suggests there's also an issue in that turnout. Check it very carefully with an NMRA gage and make sure the check gauge is correct. If this is a commercial turnout, I suspect the check gauge is bad. A bad check gauge will often work if the wheelsets are perfect, but if you get both a bad check gauge and a bad wheelset - it's derailment time.

Old cars, new wheels

Joe answered your second question; on the first one, the big reason to go to metal wheels is to keep the railhead cleaner -- everyone I know who has converted to metal has few contact problems and spends less time scraping away black crud from wheelsets and the track.

I'd say isolate the troublemakers, check the wheelsets with an NMRA gage, and see if some are too narrow or too wide. Using 'The Tool' Jeff mentioned will help improve rolling qualities. Sometimes there's a burr on the axle end you can clean up with a file.

Kadee and Lifelike replacement wheelsets seem to fit the majority of one-piece trucks that I run across. Reboxx sells wheelsets with a variety of axle lengths that can solve other problems -- they're essentially the same wheels as Intermountain's.

Sometimes you just have to get your eyes down to rail level and see what's  going on at the derailment point.

older rolling stock...

...on one particular layout that I frequent tends to be worn out in very specific ways. The Moira Valley layout, which I am most fond of, has been around since the mid 80's. The rolling stock is even older than that; some dating back to the early 70's. Most of it is scratchbuilt, some of it is brass. The sole benefit of this is that at least 90% of the wheels are metal. The layout gets used fairly heavily considering its age.

a) The bearing surfaces of the cast metal sideframes are often worn oval. These are not 60º cones, but simple holes in the frames to capture the straight-ended axles. Some of the manufacturers had used small brass top-hat grommets as an insert to improve wear, but this approach will never be as free-rolling as cone bearings. I've seen the thin walls of the brass worn right through as well.

b) The metal in the oldest (and most numerous) trucks has "gone funny". It tends to lose its shape or fracture, depending on each manufacturer's recipe for their casting material.

c) The coupler centering springs are shot. Many of the couplers are very old Kadee's, pre-dating the #802 (or even #5) style. Some of the knuckle springs are missing-in-action as well. I believe the older style couplers did not retain these springs as well as the newer designs.

d) The coupler pockets are disintegrating. Some of the trains are 40+ not-very-free-rolling cars. There can be a lot of strain on the pocket lids & screws. The couplers then droop, fail to maintain centre, or fail to hold when slack occurs.

Replacing all of the trucks could prove an expensive proposition. Keeping in mind that this is S scale and the layout is set in the pre 1920 time frame, there are no readily available archbar trucks that do not employ the same manufacturing techniques as the vintage versions. When you are lucky enough to find a cache of archbars, you may realise that they are new-old-stock and have been sitting around for 20+ years.

One option would be to order brass cone inserts from a company called "Romford" in England. These, in conjunction with pointed-axle wheelsets from NWSL, would greatly improve rolling quality. However, without a ready replacement for the disintegrating sideframes, the point seems moot.

(In S, there are plenty of choices in newer style trucks, but they are not appropriate to the locale/era being modelled.)

Chris

Metal Wheels

I agreed with Jeff 100% !!  I have always replaced my plastic wheels with metals wheels. It makes a world of a difference.

For N?

Is there a comparable "truck tuner" product for N? I did not see one in the micromark catalog.

Chris

Truck tuner for N-scale?

The Reboxx site does not list one and all of the references I have seen are HO only.

For testing truck performance Reboxx also has the Reboxx Roll Tester.  I thought it was interesting but $40 seems a bit steep to me.

I saw a thread where someone mentioned putting graphite powder on the wheel sets before re-installing them.  I was wondering if that was a good thing to do, or not?

Follow-up

The repaired freight cars finally made their way back to Siskiyou Lines rails after their trip through the 32nd Avenue Shops.

Everything seems to work, with one exception: A recent Athearn Genesis box car (big thing) flops off to one side or the other, due to the $%^&*# bolster design and the absence of truck bearings on the frame. Naturally, it worked fine on 32nd Ave's test track, but not with a full trains worth of buff stresses.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, and how did they fix it?

Oh, is that what was wrong?

I thought maybe the weight in the car had gotten loose and was lying up against one side, since it seemed to lean pretty consistently towards the front edge of the layout.

Removing glued on coupler boxes

Before trying to pry them off "dry" use a small brush to apply some CA debonder (or acetone, or nail polish remover) to the seam between the lid and the box. Let it sit for a couple of minutes and then try prying off. It will usually take the coupler box lid off (they were usually glued on at the factory with CA - not liquid cement).

Marty

Leaner

The couplers were fine, Marty. The problem was the entire car body leaning over to one side. Because the freight car turned up at the shops with no defect written up, they fixed some minor underframe problems, replaced a coupler spring, and sent it back out.

Turns out when it was put in a train, it flops off to one side or the other and won't sit up straight.  Truck & bolster problem.At least, that's what Supt. Fugate said, and he's never wrong.

Sorry Joe - I think you misunderstood

I was responding specifically to an earlier note from Charlie regarding glued on coupler boxes.

Another way to loosen CA joints is to put the model in the freezer - of course, that will make ALL the pieces fall apart - but most modelers want kits to come back, right? Here's a way to get there from here!!!

The couplers were fine,

I like to write up the problem on the back of the car card. That way a repair history follows the car around without need to go dig around in a file for a trouble report.

Charlie

trouble report

I've also seen people using a defect card edged in red that slips into the waybill pocket. The shops like to know what's wrong before they get the torches out.

Hi everybody!I'm rather late

Hi everybody!I'm rather late on this topic (I've just joined!)

If you'ii allow comments from the other side of the pond (England), firstly I can recommend the Romford brass bearings (they are intended for British 26mm axles and require 24mm spacing between the frames - 1in. axles, or whatever, will need the relevant modification of this dimension). They are also quite cheap! The simplest check on free rolling is the grade the car will start rolling on. Pin-point bearings should be able to start on a 1% grade. (The "digital check" should result in the wheelset spinning for some time.)

As for drunken, wobbly cars (Athearn for example, though they're not alone), the cure for these is a three point suspension (Rivarossi/AHM cars have this already - apart from the de-luxe ones with sprung trucks). One truck is free to move in all three planes, while the other is constrained by two points (on the truck or car floor - two small screws are ideal) to only turn or rock back and forth (along the truck or car longitudinal axis).  Two screws allow easy adjustment of lean and ride height but pegs of some kind will work just as well. Once done the 'Jello' car becomes rock steady, just like the real thing.

Finally,I would agree about metal wheelsets!

Following up Joe's Follow up

Question by Joe Brugger

Everything seems to work, with one exception: A recent Athearn Genesis box car (big thing) flops off to one side or the other, due to the $%^&*# bolster design and the absence of truck bearings on the frame. Naturally, it worked fine on 32nd Ave's test track, but not with a full trains worth of buff stresses.

Has anyone else encountered this problem, and how did they fix ?

Answer Replace the Trucks with Better quality Kadee Trucks with metal wheels or:

Football season is back Take the Box car out back and Kick a field goal with it and go buy a new one! cars that just don't want to cooperate on my railroads usually become air born or become a new warehouse in shanty town.

Dan

Football season is back Take

Football season is back Take the Box car out back and Kick a field goal with it and go buy a new one! cars that just don't want to cooperate on my railroads usually become air born or become a new warehouse in shanty town.

I have found this option to be best occasionally

I like metal sprung trucks

I like metal sprung trucks on my freight cars, they look good and can watch them equalize over uneven track. Yes, they don't roll free-roll as well as  plastic trucks do, however work well for my layout.  The longest train I run is about thirty cars and two diesel units handle a train with sprung trucks just fine.  When switching and spotting cars at industries they don't free-roll away such as cars with Atlas trucks that seem to be the most free rolling. 

Leaner

 Leaners and flip-floppers, Proto 87 Stores has a solution to your problems!

 They call these "Easy-Riders" designed to prevent Flip-Flopping and leaning.

Details at the Proto 87 Stores.

Thanks Les That's a great

Thanks Les That's a great little invention I have a few standard Gauge HO cars that can definitely use these little buggers. And I thought Easy Rider was just a movie about Bikers. I looked in this box of Trucks I bought from E-Bay along with 6 lbs of Parts for scratch building and there a dozen of these in the box and I just thought they were wierd washers

Dan

Odd, I have several Genesis