Mr. Mechanic:

Just a note about clear fingernail polish.

A few years ago I was having some little movement hiccups at the frog area of a turnout.  I figured, like yours, at least one metal drive wheel on a diesel was momentarily touching and shorting out on the adjacent rail top, and I was correct.  So I cleaned the rail top area with some alcohol on a rag, borrowed my wife's clear fingernail polish, and with a toothpick or something applied the polish about 1/4" in length on the top of the offending one rail.  I let it cure for about an hour then did it again.

Well, it's been over four years and the fix is still working fine (and I run two engines with 63 cars over that fix about 10 times every two days or so.)  And of course, the fix is invisible.   Also, I'd bet that two or three thin applications on the side of a cleaned rail-head would work fine too.

K487

Wayne:

Thanks for the attaboy.

VERY nice pics of your RR there!

K487 (Doug)

Neat little track plan; I like it.

K487

JRP

Here's what I did to get some added weight to some HO covered hoppers (when the roof has been glued on.)

Looking at a covered hopper from the side we see the dump chutes poking out below the side sheets of the car.  In my experience most HO covered hoppers' chutes continue upward out-of-site thereby making an upside-down "V". 

So, I turn the the covered hopper upside-down, mix a batch of caulk and used lead bbs (got a 5-poind box off ebay a few years ago -  very inexpensive), cleaned the bbs, then mixed them with the caulk. 

Make sure the now-upside down hopper Vs are clean, and put your bb/caulk weight mix down into the V(s), let them set 1/2 to one day to cure, and viola! - you've got yourself a few ounces of HIDDEN weight, and it's relatively down low.

Hope this is helpful.

K487

DAndrews:

My thinking is that the 2-10-0 MIGHT/PROBABLY WILL have a problem.  Less so if the center drivers are blind.

K487

I found these pictures today (they were taken today).  Check out the last one and read the description below it. AMAZING.

K487

Not being very "digitized", I hope this link works:

http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,300991

satch7749

A heads-up for you here -

Those HO Bachmann Berkshires are, in my opinion, beautiful steam locomotive models and operate very well (as info I run them on DC, not DCC), and I have more than one.

However, on some of Bachmann's premier HO steamers you might come across a peculiar little problem.  I've had this problem on more than one engine, but the fix is EASY.

If you turn the engine upside down you'll see a "plate" (plastic) with about 5 or so screws in it.  This plate holds in the drive wheels and keeps them from falling out when the loco is upright. In my experience with the nice Bachmann steamers, every 3rd or 4th loco won't run quite right.  Why?  One (or more) of the screws is too tight thereby pinching one or more drive axle - so it won't turn freely.  The fix is to loosen one or more screws about 1/8 to 1/4 turn.

And to check this problem from the get-go when you receive the loco, turn the engine upside-down and just push each driver back a forth with your thumb and finger. If they move freely no problem.  If you feel resistance on an axle, do the fix mentioned in the paragraph above.

As info the Berkshire's weight is strongly biased toward the rear.  It will run okay as-is but I and a lot of other modelers add weight (generally 2 to 4 ounces, whatever you can get inside) in the boiler shell starting at the front two drivers and forward.  Helps on overall traction.

K487

Well, I've used caulk for many, many purposes, indoors and outdoors.  

My overall favorite is DAP's Dynaflex230 Clear.  It comes out of the tube (I use a caulking gun) white but dries clear.  It sticks to dry surfaces easily, and I often use my pointer finger to push it and spread it where it needs to go.  

On my model RR I've got my 3 layers of layout foam "glued" together with caulk, and it's not come loose in over 20 years (and I've moved my layout twice.)

I also use this caulk to "glue" weights inside my HO diesel engines - haven't had a single weight come loose.  To apply the caulk I use a dental pick or toothpick.

Another thing, as this caulk "dries" it does not harden - it's still got some flexibility.

And lastly, I have a metal carport, and for extra (anchor-type) support  I welded two metal pipe posts (with flattened ends) to two of the carport's metal supports and welded the other ends  diagonally down to two T posts sticking out of the ground.  After brushing the welds and wiping them clean, I then smeared the welds with this caulk; in 12 years there's not one sign of rust growing.

K487

CREngineer:

As info I'm strictly all DC; no DCC.  My model RR is HO scale.

A couple of thoughts:

Have you lubed all of the drive train parts from the motor bearings out to the wheel bearings?  And as info, with Bachmann engines I need to lube the the motor bearings about every 40 hours of run time.

Second, in my experience often the Bachmann engines' drive train pieces are not lined up correctly.  That is, I've got some engines (less than 5 years old) where the parts were pressure-fitted crooked on the motor shafts.  And the little "drive rods" with "T"s (cross pieces) on the ends are different sizes in diameter - one is fatter than the other across from it.  Some sand paper, hobby knives, etc. helps that.  What happens is this drive-train-vibration works its way all the way thru the gear towers down to the rails, and I get a not-too-loud buzzing sound (which I admit irritates me.)   Sometimes running a 50+ car freight train covers most of this buzzing.

In my limited experience each new shipment of Bachmann's HO engines gets better and better regarding less and less noise.

All that said, based on my idea of price/value, at least 80% of all my HO locos (diesels and steam) are Bachmann.

K487

Two thumbs-up for rogerta and jonathan.

And, here's one way I make "flexible" (malleable - you can shape it) weights for the front half of the 2-8-4's boiler (and other engines).  I bought 5 lbs. of used shotgun shot (bbs) off ebay, cleaned some of it up with a rag and rubbing alcohol, put the cleaned bbs on a clean surface and put some clear (comes out white - dries clear) caulking on the bbs, and mixed it up.  You can add or delete some of the caulk or bbs to get the right consistency.  Then you apply it almost anywhere in the boiler and it sticks on and then dries clear.  It will even stick on the underside of the upper part of the boiler.

K487

Well, of course your are correct.  I think I had it in my mind that the wye would be in there too, but austrian removed it.  I guess I'm blind in one eye and can't see out of the other!

K487

austrian:

I like your track plan.  But you know what?  Every time I look at it in my mind I want to see an easily removable bridge with track on it in the upper right hand area - that would make for a LARGE loop if you want to sit back and enjoy a slow freight train meandering around the  entire layout.

My 2 cents.

K487

I posted this on another forum and thought it would obviously be appropriate here.

As I've posted before, on my HO layout I've got a right-angle figure-8 track where I run a 32-car ore train with one engine and one caboose. The loops are both 11" radius (yes, that's correct, not diameter) - with only one loop visible (basically the rest of the track is out of sight.)

For the last few years I've used an Atlas RS32 as motive power on this train. With no modifications it pulls the train around those 11" radius curves just fine.

Well, a few weeks ago I was doing a minor cleaning/lubing job on two of Bachmann's GP38-2s (running them free-wheeling on the bench and lubing them.)  When I finished I was debating changing out a couple of other engines on another train with these, when the thought came to me, "Why don't you try one of the GP38-2s on the head-end of the ore train? Naaw, that's crazy.  Well, how do you know?  It MIGHT go around the 11" radius curves."

You know me, so I did try it, and with no modifications (see below) to the engines they each took their turn and pulled the train around the figure eight track three times each, and they each went as smooth as silk - not one derailment. I will admit I was very surprised.

So, if you need some diesels for an HO track radius down to 11", you now know that the  Bachmann GP38-2s will work fine "out of the box"...... with this possible caveat - a real nice track easement going into and coming out of the 11" radius track curves may be helpful. (I use Atlas Code 100 Flex Track, and when soldered together first they will basically make their own perfect or near-perfect easement.)

"Caviat +2"  As info, a few years ago I added about 3 ounces of weight (biased to the front so the total engine weight is equalized on both trucks) to each of these GP38-2s, but I highly doubt that that made any difference in their tracking.  And except for also changing the headlight LED, installing metal couplers, and removing the DCC board (I'm a analog DC guy) I didn't modify those  engines at all.

K487

I just wrote a response to the above thread listed below and the computer ate it.

The curves are indeed 11" radius (not diameter).  And believe it or not I myself check this every once in a while.  Why?  Even I have a hard time believing it myself.  And the HO GP38-2s did indeed go through these loops smoothly with zero derailments.

Regarding a pic, I'm 67 and an analog guy; digital things drive me crazy.  My son lives out of state but helps me sometimes when he visits.  I was able to pull up a pic of the visible loop in my computer's Picasa files, but I'll have to find someone locally to help me turn it into a message or whatever and send it.  Or see below:

This may sound crazy, but if one of you could help walk me through this pls send a private email with your phone number and I'll be glad to call you back.  Maybe we could get it done.  Thanks.

K487 (Doug)

DarG

Off the top of my head:  Given that your track is brass, is awkward to access, and easily subject to dust, if it was my track I'd (a) clean it the best I can by hand (not using anything with grit in it), and (b) run a track cleaning car around it every month or two (or more often, depending).

I'd also clean ALL the wheels of my trains - engines and cars.

Based on my 50 years of model railroading I'd also change out the plastic railcars' wheels with metal wheels, or do so to a few cars with the rest plastic and give them a test period - one, two or out to six months?  Then check and see which is doing better (i.e. picks up less crud).

I'v never had any brass track, so maybe someone else here can address that better than I can (and possibly change or tweak my advice above).

K487