I recently bought a K-line Texas Special Alco. It ran fine on my short oval until I put cars behind it. Then it derailed after passing every switch, and sometimes on a straightaway. Upon inspection, I found traction tires missing. Would that cause it to derail under load? None of my other engines do that.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
I would check the wheel gauge. Too far apart and they will do this.
Pete
I've had issues with certain locomotives that are touchy if they don't have traction tires installed. It appears that, depending on the type of track, the wheel with the missing tire drops down into the groove and lifts the opposite corner of the truck enough to occasionally derail.
Simple fix, put traction tires on it and see if that fixes it.
My K-line diesel does the same thing and I've tried everything that was suggested in another thread to fix it, but it still derails.
My K-line diesel does the same thing and I've tried everything that was suggested in another thread to fix it, but it still derails.
Thanks. I searched and didn't find that thread before posting. Looks like a common problem.
Bob, I made this suggestion many years ago and it works. You place a small spring over the silver guide pin that goes up from the top of the truck assembly into the curved slot in the frame of the locomotive. The spring is between the top of the truck and the bottom of the engine sheet metal frame. Depending on the diameter of the spring, you might need to insert a small washer on the top of the spring, to keep it from working itself into the slot of the locomotive frame.
The springs from old computer keyboards work great for this. Years ago I pulled apart several bad keyboards and kept all the springs (they don't use springs anymore in keyboards). This solution works and the derailments stop right away after this fix.
By the way, the traction tires have nothing to do with this by my experience. I've had locos do the same thing even with all traction tires in place. And I've had locos do this with traction tires removed. Personally, I remove some of the traction tires on my K-Line locos (MP-15, Alco FA, S-2) to help reduce some of the "growl" noise made on sharp curves. But I still use the spring over the guide pin.
Again, by my experience (I have always used 027 track and curves), the place the locomotives will jump the track is coming off a full 4 section curve and then into the curve of a switch track right off the 4 curved sections of track. Most layout suggestion guides tell you this is a NO NO in layout design. BUT when you have a small layout, sometimes rules need to be broken in order to have an interesting operating layout.
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
