AF Questions: Humor Me

Gilbert engine on .138 rail track.

That is a nice set. The 326 Hudson is an excellent engine. Runs great, smokes great and still has the tender mounted 4 position reverse unit. If something is not working these are very easy to repair. It has a tender mounted air chime whistle that sounds awful, just pretend it is not there. Some 326's have small motors (1/2" armature stack) and some have large motors (3/4"). Either runs fine.

Baldwin switchers run marginal at best, the PA's run great until they don't. The main problem with the PA's is axle hole wear in the truck frame. The fix is to have the chassis rebushed. If you want to run diesels a lot, either have them converted to can motors or buy the modern FlyerChief diesels. For once in a while operation all the Gilbert diesels are ok.

All S gauge trains will run on .138 rail. Some, but not all will run on code 125 rail. Lionel FasTrack uses .138 rail and is the most complete track system available. It is not cheap. FasTrack is made in 20" and 27" radius. Original Gilbert track works well and is by far the cheapest. It is readily available. The Gilbert turnouts work forever. GarGraves makes flex and sectional track that mates directly with Gilbert track. SHS/MTH also made a .138 rail track system but it is out of production. American Models makes a code 148 rail track system.

Gilbert and Lionel AF, American Models, SHS/MTH and Scale Trains all run on 20"R track. Larger radius looks better but is not required.

Knuckle couplers work fine. Link couplers work great when properly adjusted. I make a few transition cars, link on one end, KC on the other end, so I can use both. I have never seen Marx couplers on AF trains. Some operators convert all their cars to Kadee couplers. It is a lot of work and requires a perfect track system. I just use mostly knuckle couplers.

Because I'm not a fan of "bells and whistles", I lean more towards early PW steam: # 300, 310, 320. They all run VERY well, smooth and quietly.

Having said that, I do think Gilbert's approach to their smoke was very well designed, in that the geared piston smoke plunger ran off the same mechanism as the drive wheels, so the smoke is always in sync with the wheels' rotation...and these things smoke like crazy. I dare say my #302 and 312 are both more reliable smokers than the much newer TMCC Lionel O gauge steam I sometimes play with.   The "choo choo" sound is realistic enough, although as I mentioned, I prefer more "silent" running engines, so I keep these 2 on hand just because I have 'em...and they work so well.

Gilbert's S scale knuckles are not much smaller than the Lionel O gauge "lobster claw", so I like the link couplers a bit better, as the cars couple more closely together...FWIW.

I use American Models track; being code 148 (the same as the '70s vintage Atlas 2 rail O scale), everything I have (both scale and PW Flyer) runs just fine on it. As an added bonus, (for me anyway) since the Flyer engines have the AC/DC "universal" type motors, I simply run everything with my large Marnold DC power pack. If you want to run just Flyer and use AC, I found the big (older) MRC "0-27" unit works really well on these (non can-motored) engines...although any PW transformer (Gilbert or Lionel) work just fine too.

Mark in Oregon

I have one of the Hudsons that I upgraded to DCC.  It runs very well and quite smoothly.  My problem is I left the club and don't have DCC at home.

It is a great looking engine as well.