Atlas O Trainman 60' passenger cars derail on Ross 042 switches

Picture of it and the truck?

Check for a snag at the frog or a rail "bump".  I have several of these and all operate just fine through Ross and GG 042 switches.  They also track fine around a super-o return loop (0-36)  I would hand push one car at a time through the location where this is happening to see what is causing the mystery.  Also does this happen in either direction?

All 3 cars will jump and derail in either direction. Rolling by hand I can feel them bind through the curved leg of the switch. They do it on all 4 of my Ross 042 turnouts in either direction. Doing some searching I think I found the issue: https://ogrforum.com/...41#78579203744211041

I'll try making some spacers for the pickup rollers when I get home from work tonight and see if that solves the issue.

I had a similar situation with Atlas Zephyr coaches and an 090 Ross curved switch. The cause was the underbody of the cars spanning the curve and scraping the switch machine, which was mounted on the inside of the curve. The solution of course was to move the machine to the outside of the switch.

Jan

The cars are not hitting the switch ground throws. I'm going to try the pickup spacer and see if it solves the issue. If not I'll go back to looking for another cause. It's something with these cars as every other piece of equipment I have is fine going through these switches. 

I have hand pushed each car through the switches and can feel them bind/lift up in the same spot on all of the switches. 

The problem lies with the pick-up roller itself. it is dropping into a gap at the frog of the switch. I reported on this sometime ago and even had a discussion with bill s. from atlas about the problem. He confirmed that the problem existed with the pick-up roller design and  Ross switches. We determined that the pick-up roller had too much downward travel. I came up with a spacer to place in the roller assembly to limit its travel and the problem went away. Do a search on the form and you may find my post with pictures of the spacer fix.

I did find your post (and linked to it above). That was the issue. I added a spacer to the pickup assembly and all is well. 

Now I have to dig out the two additional atlas cars that haven't yet seen the light of day to see if this is a concern.  As stated earlier the two currently on the layout do not show this problem.  I wonder if it is limited to a manufacturer date.

Depends. The issue was much less pronounced on the combine car, which has 4 wheel trucks. 

The 1st run Atlas Trainman Coaches had some issues with the throws on their own Atlas O45 switches. I posted these pics in early 2012.

The 1st 4 pics show what I mean, the steps catch the the throw, but only on a curve as the body pivots a little.

The 5th picture shows the step height on a Lionel 18" heavyweight which clears it every time.