Model Railroading > Athearn well cars and leaning

Hey guys, I HAVE a 40 car stack track that is made up of mostly old athearn five unit articulated well cars and they LEAN on sharp turns. alot. They lean so much that they almost derail. Is this an issue of the cars being to light or something else? These cars are weighted already I think at what ever the club Im at allows I think its a 1/2 oz plus 1 ounce for every inch that a car is in Length. and they are all 48 FOOT Five unit articulater well cars

I was thinking of adding more weight to the containers, or would that not help?

Well. how tight of the curves? most of the older cars I have. Ran good on curves over 22" radius or greater.

I dont think its the curve radius, most of these are well over 22", its the turns going up grade that are the ones causing the lean.

Adding about an ounce of weight to the BOTTOM container in each well should help w/ the leaning.

BNSFCajon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Adding about an ounce of weight to the BOTTOM
> container in each well should help w/ the leaning.


This is true. I regularly run 40-50 "bucket" trains at my club. The mainline grades reach 2.5 % in a couple places, and the minimum radii are in the mid to high 30s (inches). For all my 'plastic' well cars (Athearn RTR, early Walthers kits, some A-line) I add 1.5 oz. stick on weights to the lower containers (1.5 oz for a 40-48' / .75 oz for each 20' box). The top boxes stay weight free. For all the metal well cars (Walthers Husky-stacks, 53' NSC well) I don't add any weight. That and all metal wheels & couplers should help with any problems. One other issue is to make sure that the articulating pins are free of any binding issues. Use a file rat-tail file to sand the opening a hair larger so there is as little friction in the articulating joints as possible.


Mr. MRL - BNSF patched ex. MARESK Maxi-Is?? Hmmm...

I solved it this way:
I used the rat tail file as suggested to open the hole the pin passes through. I also used a drill bit that was just a little larger than the ball socket. By hand, I turned it in the socket a few times, NOT aggressively. This made it slightly larger inside. The leaning is now gone.

> Mr. MRL - BNSF patched ex. MARESK Maxi-Is?? Hmmm...

Yes. I thought that's why Athearn ran those cars.

NSTopHat

I typically run 12 to 15 five-unit well cars made by various manufacturers and have found that for these long trains the NMRA weight suggestions are too low. I put 3 ounces of weight in the bottom container(s) regardless of the weight of the car. Forty footers get 3 ounces and twenty footers get 1.5 ounces each. I never add weight to the top container. I do tend to run the heavier cars toward the front of the train and the lighter cars toward the rear of the train. I also have installed Intermountain wheel sets and cleaned up the journals as needed. Most importantly I always run mid-train or rear-end helpers. The helpers not only help mitigate the tendency for the cars to lean but minimize broken knuckles (Kadees) and articulated joints (on the Walthers cars) as well. I also did a lot of R&D to determine the amount of weight to use and where to place the helpers for optimal performance on our layout.

Our layout has minimum radii of 42 inches and a maximum grade of 2.5%. I have been running this train for the past several years and the combination of adequate weight, free rolling wheel sets and distributed power has solved my performance problems.

NSTopHat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > Mr. MRL - BNSF patched ex. MARESK Maxi-Is??
> Hmmm...
>
> Yes. I thought that's why Athearn ran those cars.
>
> NSTopHat


I'm considering it... does Microscale make the correct patch decals?

Mr. MRL

I've got a couple of shots that I've taken, but I have not started looking for the decals yet. I'm sure that there is a Microscale set that is extremely close. On the prototypes I'ev seen, the diesel patch set was going to be my starting point.

Also, I think I've seen and shot some SP's(?) that are ex-Maersk re-paints as well.

I'll try to dig out a digital and forward it to you.

NSTopHat

I have 36" radius curves on my store oval layout.They lean a little,but with a 72 feet of track,i'm running 8-5 packs of Gunderson's.Ohh,4 yrs ago,i got a deal on those Gundersons...

Brand new,@ $13.00 a set. Repainting them now into BNSF cars

NSTopHat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Also, I think I've seen and shot some SP's(?) that
> are ex-Maersk re-paints as well.

Ex-CHTT, to be precise. They show up frequently here in SoCal coming/going to ICTF; that baby blue is hard to miss. I've got shots of one here:

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/photos/sp/sp513512b_paul_ellis.jpg
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/photos/sp/sp513512c_paul_ellis.jpg
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/photos/sp/sp513512d_paul_ellis.jpg
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/photos/sp/sp513512e_paul_ellis.jpg
http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/photos/sp/sp513512a_paul_ellis.jpg

And the page with info on the series:

http://www.railgoat.railfan.net/spcars/bynumber/flat/sp513505-513524.htm

PE