Demonstration video: 2R wheels and Kadees on O-48 FasTrack

Been doing it for years -- locomotives and rolling stock.

O-48 is 24" radius -- extremely sharp, but short equipment can get through it. A lot of the old street industrial trackage in Downtown Los Angeles was very sharp  as it rounded corners (some buildings were built with curved walls). Of course, box cars and locomotives were small back then, too. When I investigated the possibility of an industrial layout, I looked at 27" radius (O-54) but it was too sharp for the Geeps I wanted to use.

Great video,  I plan on making the switch to the Kadee couplers in the future but glad to know that the 2 rail trucks roll nicely over the turnouts. We use Atlas track .  Is their a difference if you use 2 or more cars, will they bind. Thanks again for posting this video.  Nick T 

Very interesting.

Thanks

How can scale wheels roll through a high rail turnout without dropping into the groove before the frog? I have MTH 3 rail locomotives (way before the 2-3 thing) on Real Trax that drop into the groove before the frog and you can see it bump. These are locomotives with 2 driver axles.

Oman posted:

How can scale wheels roll through a high rail turnout without dropping into the groove before the frog? I have MTH 3 rail locomotives (way before the 2-3 thing) on Real Trax that drop into the groove before the frog and you can see it bump. These are locomotives with 2 driver axles.

So what if the wheels "drop". Our layout is all Atlas O solid nickel silver track, and I have many 2-Rail scale pieces of rolling stock. Yes, I had to modify each turnout, by shimming the guard rails to the same height as the running rails, and many times you can hear the 2-Rail scale wheeled cars "drop through the frog", but they do not derail. That's all I care about.

Hot Water posted:

Oman posted:

How can scale wheels roll through a high rail turnout without dropping into the groove before the frog? I have MTH 3 rail locomotives (way before the 2-3 thing) on Real Trax that drop into the groove before the frog and you can see it bump. These are locomotives with 2 driver axles.

So what if the wheels "drop". Our layout is all Atlas O solid nickel silver track, and I have many 2-Rail scale pieces of rolling stock. Yes, I had to modify each turnout, by shimming the guard rails to the same height as the running rails, and many times you can hear the 2-Rail scale wheeled cars "drop through the frog", but they do not derail. That's all I care about.

The point of the video was, stock; no modifications. My question was a question, not a criticism.

    If you look closely at the video, you will notice that the wheels jump when in reverse thought the turn out.   One car going slow, you won't have a problem. but try running in reverse with 7 or 8 and you will have a derailment. One of the big reasons I switched to Atlas, was the rails are flat compared to the rounded rails of the fast track.  You will still need to modify the turnout at the guide rail with styrene to prevent derailments.  Even with Atlas you have to do this. The reason is the 2r flanges are slim compared to the 3r flanges which are bigger. The rounded rail dose not provide full contact and some cars will lean to one side or the other. The larger flanges prevent the drop on the frogs. With the Atlas turn outs the styrene is put on top of the guide rail, bringing the guide rail height the same as the outer rail. I learned that trick from HW.

I can't speak for Atlas, but I 've had success with Gargraves, Ross, ScaleTraxx, and as you can see FasTrack. I've pushed cuts of cars through without problems too.  I'll answer questions if anyone has them, but I'm not going to argue. That wasn't the point. The point was to get people thinking and maybe try something they've been told "doesn't work".  I'm not saying it will work in every scenario, but it is certainly not the impossibility that some people have been saying lately. I just want to encourage people to give it a try. Sometimes you need to adjust track, couplers, etc... and sometimes it works out of the box.

Now having said that, if I were running 3RS I would not bother trying to run 2 rail wheels. You will have less headaches and much better success if you jus use 3 rail wheelsets. But if you have a 2 rail car or two you might want to give it a shot. You might be surprised.

Hope it helps.

I am not saying its in possible.  Gargraves, ross, and ScaleTraxx are a thinner rail than fast track.  I have been running Kadees for a while so I can speak from experience. 40ft cars should not be an issue with 048. But if you are running  50ft and bigger engines you will have issues with 048 and the S curve. Below is my thread on converting engines to Kadees.  The 2 axle engins I can easly run with fixed pilots. With the 3 Axle units I have had some issues leading into the yard with 072, so I chose not to fix the pilots.  

https://ogrforum.com/t...73#61965511445937073

Now you can run tighter radius with Kadees with certain tricks. Use long shank vs med shank. Slice off the back of the draft gear box to allow more side to side movement of the coupler.  Long shank increases the distance between cars. Now I noticed that on the tender you are using a 806( long Shank). That dose make a difference with the sharper radius.  Using 805 you can still engage the lobster claws. 740/743/745s and Atlas Kadee style do not work well with lobster claws.  So I am not knocking what you have done. I am just saying that there are some other things to consider. Personally I take the kadees any day. I would encourage you to post more videos and how to as they help the cause,  but don't get upset with those who have been doing it for a while chime in.

suzukovich posted:

I am not saying its in possible.  Gargraves, ross, and ScaleTraxx are a thinner rail than fast track.  I have been running Kadees for a while so I can speak from experience. 40ft cars should not be an issue with 048. But if you are running  50ft and bigger engines you will have issues with 048 and the S curve. Below is my thread on converting engines to Kadees.  The 2 axle engins I can easly run with fixed pilots. With the 3 Axle units I have had some issues leading into the yard with 072, so I chose not to fix the pilots.  

https://ogrforum.com/t...73#61965511445937073

Now you can run tighter radius with Kadees with certain tricks. Use long shank vs med shank. Slice off the back of the draft gear box to allow more side to side movement of the coupler.  Long shank increases the distance between cars. Now I noticed that on the tender you are using a 806( long Shank). That dose make a difference with the sharper radius.  Using 805 you can still engage the lobster claws. 740/743/745s and Atlas Kadee style do not work well with lobster claws.  So I am not knocking what you have done. I am just saying that there are some other things to consider. Personally I take the kadees any day. I would encourage you to post more videos and how to as they help the cause,  but don't get upset with those who have been doing it for a while chime in.

You'll have to do more than that to "upset" me.

I do find it comical that you say that I shouldn't get up set when others that have been "doing it for a while" chime in. Are you assuming I haven't? Just to level set...I've been a model railroader for 40 years. I've modeled in 3RO, 3RS, 2RO, 2RHR O, S scale, S HiRail, HO, and N. I've been on this forum since 2001 and I was one of the advocates to start a 3RS board here. I won't make an assumption about how long someone else has or has not been doing things like this, I merely offer it as an example. Nothing more... As I said earlier, I wouldn't recommend anyone try to use 2R wheelsets on 3R track as a standard, but when I saw statements that it "can't" be done and I know for a fact it can for certain circumstances I figured I would post this so that people who have never tried it would have an example to go from. That's all.

BTW... you've misidentified the coupler. As I stated in the video it is a 745 medium center shank on the tender and the stock atlas coupler on the Gon.

I know you have been doing this for a while and I follow 3RS.  I just wish more people would show it can be done.. I too am tired of the it can not be done crowd.. New layout which will be bigger and proper will have larger radius curves so I can fix the pilots. I am in too deep now to switch to 2R. 

I caught my mistake but too late to make the correction..

John,

Your Gargraves/Ross video was low speed and short with one car.  I have had very poor luck with scale flanges on this track.  I might be fine for 10 laps or so but eventually, for no reason, you will get derailments.  Show me a full train on a layout.  I have a customer who swears his works too so I am not saying you are wrong....maybe it is both of my layouts???

Dave

David Minarik posted:

John,

Your Gargraves/Ross video was low speed and short with one car.  I have had very poor luck with scale flanges on this track.  I might be fine for 10 laps or so but eventually, for no reason, you will get derailments.  Show me a full train on a layout.  I have a customer who swears his works too so I am not saying you are wrong....maybe it is both of my layouts???

Dave

 

I had the same thoughts. One thing to consider with using 2-Rail SCALE wheel sets on various types of HiRail/3-Rail track is; the tread width of the particular 2-Rail SCALE wheels being used. I have found, through trial and error, that the Weaver 2-Rail SCALE wheel sets have a slightly wider tread width, and thus tend to track much better backing a long train through various turnouts in the yard. Conversely, the Atlas 2-Rail SCALE wheels have a narrower tread width, and do NOT track as well, while MTH 2-Rail SCALE freight car trucks tend to track almost as well as the Weaver product, on 3-Rail track.

I can't stand watching 2 rail wheel sets dropping into my turnout frogs. Flanges need to be .100" plus or minus .010" to track well through them. I have .060" flanges on a High Iron K4 tender but that's about as small as it can get without major problems.

David Minarik posted:

John,

Your Gargraves/Ross video was low speed and short with one car.  I have had very poor luck with scale flanges on this track.  I might be fine for 10 laps or so but eventually, for no reason, you will get derailments.  Show me a full train on a layout.  I have a customer who swears his works too so I am not saying you are wrong....maybe it is both of my layouts???

Dave

 

Hi Dave,

I'm not trying to say that everything will work in every scenario. I am only working with one type of turnout on each layout so take that for what it's worth. I know you use bigger turnouts than I do and I remember Matt saying that he had problems with the larger Ross turnouts. I can run a sting of 10+ cars with scale wheels and couplers around my son's O-48 layout indefinitely going forward. I need to take my time going in reverse through a turnout as I show in this video. If I wanted to go faster I would have to modify the turnout. The only issues I have on the 2 rail layout are with cars that are too long... but that was the point. It was setup as a "worst case" torture test. I wouldn't build a layout like that. Using #4 or #5 turnouts and easements works great.

Again, I'm afraid I have caused some confusion... I'm NOT advocating running 2 rail wheels on everything and saying that you will never have problems. Best to keep the HiRail wheels if you are on 3 rail. I'm merely trying to illustrate that you can in fact run 2 rail on FasTrack in a pinch. I agree with Hot Water that it depends on whose 2 rail wheel sets you are running too. I've had pretty good luck with the Intermountain wheel sets on 3 rail track for whatever reason.

t8afao posted:

Great video,  I plan on making the switch to the Kadee couplers in the future but glad to know that the 2 rail trucks roll nicely over the turnouts. We use Atlas track .  Is their a difference if you use 2 or more cars, will they bind. Thanks again for posting this video.  Nick T 

I'm one of three AGHR members who use 2-rail rolling stock on the club layout and the only run running scale-wheeled locomotives. Here are my experiences over the past 7 years of doing this:

• Basically, you will run into difficulty pushing 2-rail rolling stock through a curve-replacement turnout like an O-72. Straight-leg turnouts (#4, #5, Ross 11-degree) seem to work fine when backing a low speed. I have pulled scale cars through O-72 turnouts at low speed without incident.
• Modern 2-rail cars seem to have a lower rolling resistance than hi-rail cars.
• You'll learn through trial and error (in my case a lot of error) which cars should not be coupled to each other due to swing-out of the end sills on curves.
• Six-axle diesels and your fixed-frame steam locomotives will become great devices for finding imperfections in your track work.
• Reverse Curves without a sufficient length of straight track in between will test the limits of your coupler swing, especially with longer cars. You don't really want them anywhere, but you especially don't want them on a mainline with body-mounted couplers. If you've seen some of my posts assisting with layout designs, I don't even put them on hi-rail layouts where truck-mounted couplers will be used (just because we can doesn't mean we should).
• You WILL (definitely WILL) get the occasional car that will derail on a turnout while a similar car will go through fine.
• You will develop an appreciation for close-coupling.
• 36" radius (O-72) curves will work for most of the freight rolling stock. Longer passenger cars will probably take offense to the sharp curves unless you use long-shank couplers or modify the swing.
• I've found that some Atlas cars need to have the cross bars removed to allow the trucks to equalize a bit.
• Most weaver cars (properly weighted) with plastic or Intermountain steel (preferred) wheels will work just fine, though I had a couple that had run for hours at the club two weeks ago, then decided to start derailing 10 minutes before we closed (may be temperature/humidity related).
• The big thing is to make sure you don't have kinks and uneven rail heights as these will cause the flanges to lift on one of the trucks. This is one of the things six-axle diesels will find for you as the pickup roller will ride up on the center rail if you have a low spot on one of the running rails. My Big Boy video illustrates this well.
• As for the cars themselves, make sure they have enough weight. Light cars will bounce and derail or string-line if they're in the wrong place in the train.
• I've run short and long scale-wheeled trains and there doesn't seem to be any noticeable difference in behavior of the cars subject to proper placement of heavier cars toward the front of the train.
• Atlas rolling stock seems to behave the best due to weight and wheel configuration. MTH rolling stock with MTH 2-rail trucks also works well. Brass imported cars with code 145 wheelsets sometimes get testy and derail if your track is slightly out of gauge.
• Kadee and Atlas trip pins MUST be set to the proper clearance above the rail head on the center rail (1/16") or they'll pick the center rail in turnouts and derail the car and/or cause uncoupling from the train.
• Scale-wheeled cars have insulated wheels and will not trigger insulated-rail signaling systems. Having a hi-rail caboose or FRED car on the tail end will properly flag the end of the train as far as block signals go. We're going to be switching AGHR over to an optical system.
• Your colleagues will rib you over the new path you've taken but will thank you for finding the bad spots on the layout.

Matt,

Thanks for  spelling all of that out.  I have definitely run into some of those problems.

Dave

Thanks Matt. That covers it well.

I think that part of the issue is that, no offense, but many 3 rail only modelers aren't aware of good track laying techniques that modelers in the "scales" (N, HO, S, O, etc...) use. When you go to body mounted couplers and smaller flanges all kinds of things pop up that require a more scale-like approach to operate smoothly. 

Make friends with a Proto: 48 modeler and you'll learn everything you ever wanted to know about laying good track