Ed,
Our Houston mall show had some of the same problems you have and a few
more to boot. When you have several guys with their personal equipment
surprises do happen. Likewise modules that have hauled around for many
years also have their issues. All-in-all things went very well, but for
a couple of areas that trains would slow or stop for an instant and then
start running again. Obviously, one would think, that this is an
electrical/track issue. However two of my engines, a brass RS-11 and an
AM GP-35 would do the hesitation thing, while Peter's RS-1 didn't have
any issues, while reversing that was Don Hand's SHS F-7 that actually
reversed itself an inch or two and then changed direction again and
continued. So now you have three situations happening in a short
distance. Unfortunately we were there to run trains so doing a complete
battery of tests wasn't in the cards.
I also experienced a situation where the OMI RS-11 would derail the
first trailing car. It seems to be any issue with the coupler decender
getting caught in the pilot. So it then became the lead unit or a
heavier car was chosen to000
Ed, mentions derailments with old stuff--I had continual derailments
with a AM modern tank car with a rigid RB truck. All the wheels are in
gauge, trucks swivel properly (one truck rocks, while the other is
fairly tight), roll nicely and a dragging coupler wasn't the issue. Yet
every time I placed that car in-train it derailed whenever it felt like
it. It will be on the workbench tonight!
One of our older members, had a small assortment of cars that also had
issues. It wasn't long before every car but one was out of service for
one reason or another. Keeping things up to date when you really don't
have a continual/functioning layout can be an issue.
Anyway tonight I'll be going through three boxes of equipment to get
them ready for the next show. I find it unusual when I run equipment
on my layout including steep grades, different sizes of rails and
switches of various heritages, but things go quite smoothly. Then three
months later I'm running the same equipment on a flat land module, with
radii in the mid 40's with expertly laid turnouts and stuff happens.
One would think the opposite would be true.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
On 6/18/12 6:59 AM, Ed Kozlowsky wrote:
I hope all you gentlemen had as good a Father's Day weekend as I
had! I did nothing but what I wanted to do.
I discovered a dead section of track one locomotive length long that
was never there before. T
I was also having some mysterious derailments at turnouts. I've
purchased several older used cars lately and tried them out for the
first time. I never checked the wheel gauge apparently, because they
were all too narrow. I assume the "new" standards widened the gauge?
*Ed Kozlowsky*
*Sanford, Maine*
