Best short heavy car for use behind new diesels with overly strong coupler springs?

Manny,

Use a short open hopper car fulled with lead shot, lead tire weights, lead etc.,you get the picture !

Charlie

Take a short hopper or gondola and load it up with nuts and bolts or old bullets and see if that works. Especially if the car has a removable load to put on top.

Then why not add weight to those light cars?

Great minds think alike, Charlie!😎😄

A diecast coal hopper should work straight out of the box without adding additional weight. Both Lionel and MTH have produced these and they can generally be easily found.

Curt

A K-Line or Atlas Die Cast hopper should work. However, any plastic enclosed car can be used if you just add some weight to it. You'd be surprised by how well even smaller cars track when weighted to NMRA recommended practices (5 ounces base plus one ounce per physical inch of car length). Even if you applied this to O-27 sized cars it should still work. You can get a postal scale off eBay for under $20 shipped and 1/2 ounce and 1/4 ounce stick-on weights (technical wheel weights) for about $20 with free shipping. Modernly, most weights seem to be made from iron as opposed to lead.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for all comments.

I like the die cast hopper idea with shot added  Very short car.  Heavy load.

I don't currently have any short cars to modify.

Mannyrock

Yes, AGHRMatt, most wheel weights are now made of steel instead of lead. Wheel weights can come loose due to pot holes, rough roads, or just age. Often they would lie at the sides of roads near water supplies, disintegrate, and leave lead deposits in the ground water to seep into drinking water supplies. Most states have made the continued use of lead weights illegal. Often large auto parts chains and tire centers have partial boxes of these lying around and will often give them away. Just a FYI

Why not address the root cause of the problem: The coupler centering spring, which is too strong?

Chris

LVHR

These diesels will not pull one single car by itself without derailing the front truck on it when rounding any corner.  The sole exception is the long heavy metal car.

The clear problem is overly powerful coupler springs, on brand new engines.  But, I'm just not interested in fooling with those right now.

AGHRMatt, thanks very much for the kind advice.  But, I cast my own lead bullets and so coming up with a sizeable lead weight is not a problem.  (By the way, you can still buy lead in ingots.)

Mannyrock

The lead ingots I am talking about are for casting large caliber muzzle loading bullets, not for use as wheel weights.  They contain antimony and are hardened.

Mannyrock

Uh, if I may sneak in -  sometimes the centering-spring issues can be mitigated by lubricating the coupler shaft pivot point/"joint"/centering mechanism. Shoot a little oil in the area. The springs (which will take a long time to get "old", if ever), combined with a dry pivot joint/spring interface, can derail a following car. This does seem to be more common on new equipment.

Also, as you probably know, rolling stock with the articulated coupler trucks are less affected by this following-car issue.

Before lubricating with oil as suggested by D500, I would try a shot of Greas-em, a dry lubricant made by Kadee.

D500 and Artie, thanks for that advice.  I have some dry lubricant spray.  If that doesn't work, I'll try a little oil.

Mannyrock

Manny,

      I had a Kline 2 Bay die cast hopper that would be perfect for what you need. You can load it with coal to make it heavier if needed. See if you can find one one EBay probably for $20 to $30 bucks.

JohnB

OK "kids" , lots of alerts to the bantering on this thread so after going through it, we deleted the worst of the less than helpful comments.  Some of you just aren't in a good mood and its not even a full Moon yet!  Be nice or take a vacation from the forum.

I see that people have the same idea I do... Die cast!  Lionel and K-Line hoppers are a good idea, and probably where I'd go... Also, K-Line made a lot of die cast enclosed cars, as well...  easy to hide weights inside without having to make them look like a load, such as ore.

Images below my own.

Lionel Die Case 3-bay hopper:

K-Line die cast boxcar & 2-bay hopper:

Thanks,

- Mario

Atlas O Die Cast Hoppers or the newer MTH Military Load 4 Car Flat Set Premier which I believe are over 1 and 1/2 pounds per car per Erics Train YouTube postings.

I have a beginner's question on the meaning of the term "Die Cast" in the model train world.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s, the term Die Cast was in my experience only used for toys made of caste metal.  Not plastic.   It was a big selling point.

But now, I look at ads for new railcars and engines, which prominently advertise them as Die Cast, and they sure look like plastic to me, at least in pictures.   Is the term now used for molded plastic?   If so, what it the big selling point about that?  Aren't 95% of plastic products made from injection molding into a die?

Thanks for any info.

And thanks for the great pictures Mario.

Mannyrock

No. Diecast means metal.

Curt

@Mannyrock posted:

I have a beginner's question on the meaning of the term "Die Cast" in the model train world.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s, the term Die Cast was in my experience only used for toys made of caste metal.  Not plastic.   It was a big selling point.

But now, I look at ads for new railcars and engines, which prominently advertise them as Die Cast, and they sure look like plastic to me, at least in pictures.   Is the term now used for molded plastic?   If so, what it the big selling point about that?  Aren't 95% of plastic products made from injection molding into a die?

I've never seen Die Cast used to mean anything other than metal.  For plastic it's usually "injection molded" though I'm not sure our plastic trains are injection molded or some other type of plastic manufacturing process.

Put simply, even today, you can be pretty well assured that Die Cast means metal.

@Mannyrock posted:

I have a beginner's question on the meaning of the term "Die Cast" in the model train world.

Growing up in the 50s and 60s, the term Die Cast was in my experience only used for toys made of caste metal.  Not plastic.   It was a big selling point.

But now, I look at ads for new railcars and engines, which prominently advertise them as Die Cast, and they sure look like plastic to me, at least in pictures.   Is the term now used for molded plastic?   If so, what it the big selling point about that?  Aren't 95% of plastic products made from injection molding into a die?

Thanks for any info.

And thanks for the great pictures Mario.

Mannyrock

Just like the other team members said, they're all metal and heavy.  I'll dig one one out and see what it weighs.

I believe that K-Line also made some traditional sized O gauge boxcars as well.  I quick search should get you one that you like.

Thanks,

- Mario

So yeah… like a rock.

almost 3 pounds.

I have a few K-Line Die Cast cars. Definitely need to be at the front of the train. Met a 2-rail operator at a train store that bought a case of the die cast hoppers and 2-railed them. They tracked beautifully but he only ran 12 in a train.

The K-Line aluminum hoppers were a nice compromise with regard to weight and tracked very well. I sold a four-pack of CNW ACF 2-bays about a year ago. The aluminum cars were overweight per NMRA standards, but weren't too bad.