Mixing the all metal, hybrid, and almost-all plastic cars: Any rules of thumb?

So many different rolling stock available. They, as you find, are not always compatible or don’t play nice with others. I am assuming that some are  3 rail toy train types that are lighter in weight  027 or traditional  , Some are all plastic with finer details unhappy in a train with heavier metal. Run what you like that are compatible and the misbehaved ones can be up for display on a siding in time out! Lol.

sorting out the Good runners from the posers is easy ‘nuff.

I mix them. I have a number of die cast hoppers and one die cast tank car and those I always position as close to the head end as possible. 

I have also converted my favorite MPC boxcars that have metal frames by replacing the plastic trucks with sprung metal trucks.  This added weight seems to help them track better.  For boxcars with plastic frames that make adding sprung trucks more problematic, I’ll add either wheel or RC airplane weights inside the car.

Ultimately, you need to ensure you don’t have too much weight toward the rear of the train to avoid string lining.

Curt

Add weights so they all weigh the same.  John

Typically the "all-plastic, plastic-truck, riveted truck attachment" category of rolling stock is low-end, sub-scale, anyway. I would never call them "detailed". Now, if that's your preference - the more "toy" end of the spectrum -  that's just fine. But mixing them with the nicer stuff seems ill-advised. 

Hopefully you don't just literally "toss" the cheapies, though. They have a place. Weight them, as suggested above. Give them to someone to help another's RR addiction along.

I'm not an advocate of die-cast metal freight cars for several reasons.  They're the ones that you should toss IMO.  I also don't believe that O gauge cars with large flanges and truck-mounted couplers have to be weighted to heavy NMRA standards for reliable operation.

It's true that all-plastic cars may be incompatible in stock form, so you have to add a little weight.  Stick-on tire weights, a mixture of 00 birdshot and white glue, etc., are good inexpensive ways to add weight.  The main thing you want is to keep the center of gravity as low as possible.  Substituting metal wheels and trucks are usually a good way to do this.

Longer cars should be heavier than shorter ones, but weighting them all about the same (and a low CG) will give you the greatest flexibility when making up a train, and the best operating reliability.  If you keep the die-cast cars you'll always have to put them near the front of the train, or you'll have to weight all your cars to an obscenely heavy standard.

One more thing... if your trains roll away or don't couple reliably when you back into them, the solution ISN'T adding more weight.  And it's not slamming into them harder, either.  Most modern-era couplers don't work well, and in some cases the mating geometry of different brands isn't compatible no matter what you do.  Your choices are to spend hours and hours reworking your couplers, or just leave them closed and engage them by hand.  Welcome to 3-rail O gauge! 

@rattler21 posted:

Add weights so they all weigh the same.  John

Too obvious,

Great Advice from all.

I am very surprised that this Board does not have a "Pay It Forward" topic board, where folks give small things away for free, that those don't have any use for, to others who may need them.  Most of the gun boards have these.   Things like inexpensive scopes, old scope mounts, mounting screws, metal sights, and the dozens of other things that seem to accumulate from the hobby over the years.  

Don't worry, I won't put any working plastic cars in the trash. I'll pass them along to someone else.

@Mannyrock posted:

Great Advice from all.

I am very surprised that this Board does not have a "Pay It Forward" topic board, where folks give small things away for free, that those don't have any use for, to others who may need them.  Most of the gun boards have these.   Things like inexpensive scopes, old scope mounts, mounting screws, metal sights, and the dozens of other things that seem to accumulate from the hobby over the years.  

Don't worry, I won't put any working plastic cars in the trash. I'll pass them along to someone else.

 

 

This 'Board' does have a Pay It Forward.  Often times members post on the For Sale Forum item(s) with a notation such as 'Free to a Good Home' or At No Charge or Pay For the Postage and It Is Yours.  John

Thanks for the info Rattler.

Sometimes the stability of lighter cars depends as much on the curves you have as the consist coupled behind them. In this video below:

The tenth car is an all-plastic starter-set caboose from the 1980's Black Cave Flyer. It literally weights 3 ounces (I have a digital scale). Behind it are eleven (mostly) scale-proportioned freight cars, albeit none are fully die-cast, though I don't think the performance would have differed much had I placed one or two behind it since the ones I have (a K-line boxcar and two hoppers) tend to roll extremely well.

The sole thing keeping that little caboose on the track is that it's being pulled through 072 curves (I acknowledge in the video description on YouTube that the caboose will not back through 072 with all those cars behind it), and even then it's obviously not happy doing it. That car produced one forward-moving derailment that probably resulted from poor train handling, but after that I  managed to keep it on the tracks, enough to shoot sufficient footage for 10 minutes of edited video.

---PCJ

Try a little graphite lube (the powdered stuff) on those plastic trucks to help with the sticking.

I prefer weights though. I like the way heavier trains run anyway so this is a good solution for me. 

Purchase a digital postal scale (about  $20-25 at big box discount store ).  Then look up the NMRA site and download their technical sheet for car weights. O scale cars have a standard of 5 ounces plus 1 ounce for every inch of length.  That means a 40 foot car (11 inches over the couplers ) should weigh 16 ounces.  I weigh all my cars to that standard and have no problem with tracking.  

A too light car placed mid train will cause string lining and be a source of derailments.  

I don't know. I guess it's easier to add weights to rolling stock, but then it makes your locomotive motors work harder, depending on your train length.

Fred Dole had an article years ago in the OGR magazine, which inspired me to drill out all rivets and replace them with a truss screw and a lock nut. It is the wobble of the loosely mounted trucks more than anything else, that is going to cause derailments, especially when backing up a train. I tighten the replacement screw all the way, then loosen just enough so the truck moves freely left to right, eliminating the wobble that is just inherent with the rivet mounted trucks. By the way, even screw mounted die cast trucks can still be very loose and therefore have wobble. Sometimes there is a brass insert over the screw, which causes the die-cast truck to wobble. Though the added weight of the die cast trucks makes them a little less prone - but not out of the question - to the same type of derailment.

This is because unlike a real train where the couplers are mounted to the train car body, our "toy" trains have the couplers mounted to the trucks. This allows navigation through tight curves. But it also means all the weight in on the couplers and thus the truck sets when pushing the train backwards. So when going through curves, the truck sets tend to get pushed upward with the loose rivet mounting, thus causing a derailment.

As a side note here, even though the truck sets and couplers appear very similar between manufacturers, they're all subtly different. The shape of the knuckle, open space inside a closed coupler, and flashing on the knuckle or coupler assembly - these things can all contribute to derailments.

Once I started replacing rivets, I have no derailments. This is on a 027 track layout with every no-no as far as track plans: "S" curves, switches on curves, and multiple switches in a row. And I can put short MARXC, K-Line or MPC 8-inch plastic cars pushing longer, heavier Lionel, K-Line and MTH cars (all with die-cast truck sets, or postwar Lionel trucks) backwards with NO derailments.

I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but seriously, I can't remember the last time I had a derailment, other than my own error for forgetting to throw a switch track. It has to be more than 20 years with no derailments.

Yes, I know drilling out the rivet might reduce the value of the train car. Reality check: Prices are already way down. And unless you can perfectly remove any adhesive residue left over from added sticky weights, this will also reduce their monetary value. Personally I'd rather have train cars that run perfectly on my layout: The value is in that. So whether you drill out rivet mountings or add weights, that's your choice. Lighter weight cars will also extend the motor life on your layout's engines.

The other thing you can do, in lieu of adding stick on weights, is to get heavier solid wheel sets. Many Lionel MPC cars came with what is called a "hollow wheel set." These have less metal in them (less cost to make) but are also lighter. The heaviest fast angle wheel sets I know of are those once made by Industrial Rail. I bought a bulk bag of them when they were easily available, and put those are shorter cars where a little weight might be useful, like those with roller pickups. But even recent production Lionel and MTH wheel sets are heavier than those by Lionel MPC.

Brian,

What is a Truss Screw?  Is this the same as a flat panhead machine screw?

Thx,

Mannyrock

Basically, put the heavier cars at the front of the train and the lighter cars towards the end to avoid what is called "Stringlining".   

If the lighter cars are at the front of the train, the drag from the heavier cars to the rear will tend to pull the lighter cars towards the inside of the curve, causing a derailment.  

Bear that in mind, and you'll have great success running mixed heavy and light cars on your trains!   

As for paying it forward:  I actually like to keep a few cheap Lionel freight cars around at shows.  Every once in awhile,  a kid will show up who's especially "into" the trains, and it's fun watching their eyes light up as I gift 'em a gondola or flat car...   

Mitch 

As Mitch just said, you can run lighter and heavier weight cars on the same train. Just place the heavier cars up front and lighter to lightest cars heading toward the back. That’s how I avoid derailing problems. 

Also, I do not mix scale sized cars with traditional size/non-scale cars in the same consist because they look odd together. 

@third rail posted:

Purchase a digital postal scale (about  $20-25 at big box discount store ).  Then look up the NMRA site and download their technical sheet for car weights. O scale cars have a standard of 5 ounces plus 1 ounce for every inch of length.  That means a 40 foot car (11 inches over the couplers ) should weigh 16 ounces.  I weigh all my cars to that standard and have no problem with tracking.  

A too light car placed mid train will cause string lining and be a source of derailments.  

 

 

I have to mention also that all of my weaver cars have been modified with body mounted kadee couplers and weighted to NMRA  standards. You get a realistic couple slack action and no derailments going in reverse. 

@Dave Warburton posted:

As Mitch just said, you can run lighter and heavier weight cars on the same train. Just place the heavier cars up front and lighter to lightest cars heading toward the back. That’s how I avoid derailing problems. 

Also, I do not mix scale sized cars with traditional size/non-scale cars in the same consist because they look odd together. 

Dave; I used to avoid mixing scale and traditional size cars till I started paying attention to the variety of car sizes in real trains.  

You’ll have 25,000 gallon tank cars coupled to 13,000 gallon cars; small cube covered hoppers coupled to jumbo covered hoppers and so on.  This variety in car size was true even in trains in the 50’s and 60’s.  I have an old Emery Goulash Wabash Railroad video that has trains in the mid-60’s with 40 foot boxcars mixed in with the large hi-cube auto parts cars that appeared to be about two times longer and several feet higher.

In short, the variety of car sizes in a train is prototypical.

Curt

@Mannyrock posted:

Brian,

What is a Truss Screw?  Is this the same as a flat panhead machine screw?

Thx,

Mannyrock

@third rail posted:

I have to mention also that all of my weaver cars have been modified with body mounted kadee couplers and weighted to NMRA  standards. You get a realistic couple slack action and no derailments going in reverse.

Yes Manny, it just has a slightly larger diameter head on it versus a regular machine screw. It offers a little more stability of the screw in what can sometimes be a slightly enlarged hole, due to drilling out the rivet.

What Bill T. said is pretty much what the Fred Dole article was about, that I had mentioned. He was talking about mounting couplers to the car bodies, and I remember he also mentioned the realistic slack action of when you go to couple up train cars. Which I do suppose is pretty cool.

But it was in that article he also talked about the truck mounted couplers and their wobble. That was the moment where I realized what the problem was. And since I'm not really a precision scale guy, and I have tight curves, I was going to need another solution other than body mounted couplers. That's where I thought of the idea of re-mounting the trucks so I lose the wobble in them, thus losing the derailment issues when running a train backwards.