mydartswinger
Member
Good evening all,
Now that I've got my MTH 2-8-0 running at home well, I took it to the train club's open house this weekend to have a fun day watching the kids ooh and aah at the sights and sounds of O gauge. For the most part, she ran well. Well, at least I thought so.
There were a couple of spots on the track where she wanted to pop her front 2 wheels off the rails. Before the other O gaugers got there, I had the same issue with another, larger locomotive as well (it was running the opposite direction on another track, though). As long as I watched the speed, she was fine. After the other 2 O gaugers got there and settled in, I went downstairs to take a break. When I got back, my train had been replaced by a diesel. Their reason was that my train had derailed about 4-5 times while I was gone. I don't know, though. They took a look at the locomotive and pointed out that the front axle was "bouncing" more than it should, and also pointed out the arc marks on the wheels.
After leaving the open house, I went to the LHS to see if they had any stiffer springs for it. The owner of the store was kind of baffled that I had asked for them. I described the situation, and asked if he wanted me to bring the locomotive in so he could check it out. He didn't see anything wrong with it. At that, I asked if he minded running it on his O gauge layout in the shop to see if we could replicate the problem. He put it on the track and got her going. After a couple of minutes of it running flawlessly, I asked him to speed it up a bit because it wasn't doing it at slow speeds at the club. He did, and there was still no issues. His track was using O-31 curves (my home track does as well). If I'm not mistaken, the curves at the club are wider. Despite thinking there's nothing wrong with my locomotive, he gave me a couple of possible solutions. The first was to add some solder to the top of the "truck" (I'm not sure what you'd call it), and the other was to try another spring (which he gave me for no charge). He also pointed out that these wheels would touch the frame of the locomotive when turned AND compressed at the same time.
After getting it home, I tried to replicate the derailments. Without the speed control active, I could not get it to derail, even at full throttle. Once the speed control was activated, however, by the time it got to 3/4 throttle it was going MUCH faster than it possibly can without it and would derail something fierce (dang near put a hole in my wall as hard as it came off the track). I also tried shimming the front wheel guide to keep the wheels from contacting the frame. It still derailed at about the same speed as before on my home track. I haven't had the chance to run it on the club track yet with the shim in place.
On the other hand, I'm about 20-30 years or more younger than any of the other O gaugers at the club. Not to mention that at one point, one of them asked me to turn the volume down on my locomotive because "it was making him go deaf". We're in a fairly large facility, and we have 3 layouts of 3 sizes going, plus a G gauge going around the ceiling. On top of that, it's a children's museum, so there are a lot of kids that come up there with their parents and are noisy. I only had the volume on my locomotive at about half, maybe 3/4 volume. When sitting on one side of the O gauge layout, I could hardly hear the whistle when the train was at the other end of the layout. It was also huffing out a really thick plume of smoke (which the kids and parents alike LOVED BTW). The O gaugers didn't say anything about the smoke or the noise (after I turned the volume down).
If the derailment really was the issue, they've got bigger problems than that to attend to. You see, they have a Lionel train pulling some dinosaur cars that comes out when the kids push a doorbell button. That train has power issues as well as derailment issues. Yet they still continue to run it. On top of that, they have a loop of track that has a cut inside a tunnel. That track has 2 trains that run on it. It's set up to where one train starts it all of, then when it clears a switch, the other train takes off in the opposite direction. When the second train stops in the cut, the first takes off again. The cycle is supposed to be continuous. However, it doesn't always work. When the trains do run, they don't collide, it's just that sometimes they just flat out don't run.
Not trying to knock anyone at the club, they all seem like good guys, and I am the new guy at the club. Maybe there was something that I missed.
Anyway, could there possibly be an issue with my train, could it be that the speed just needs to be kept in check, or could it be an issue with the way the track's laid out (there are some rough spots on the track)?
I'm sorry about the long post. I guess I just had a lot to say.
Thanks in advance,
Shannon
Now that I've got my MTH 2-8-0 running at home well, I took it to the train club's open house this weekend to have a fun day watching the kids ooh and aah at the sights and sounds of O gauge. For the most part, she ran well. Well, at least I thought so.
There were a couple of spots on the track where she wanted to pop her front 2 wheels off the rails. Before the other O gaugers got there, I had the same issue with another, larger locomotive as well (it was running the opposite direction on another track, though). As long as I watched the speed, she was fine. After the other 2 O gaugers got there and settled in, I went downstairs to take a break. When I got back, my train had been replaced by a diesel. Their reason was that my train had derailed about 4-5 times while I was gone. I don't know, though. They took a look at the locomotive and pointed out that the front axle was "bouncing" more than it should, and also pointed out the arc marks on the wheels.
After leaving the open house, I went to the LHS to see if they had any stiffer springs for it. The owner of the store was kind of baffled that I had asked for them. I described the situation, and asked if he wanted me to bring the locomotive in so he could check it out. He didn't see anything wrong with it. At that, I asked if he minded running it on his O gauge layout in the shop to see if we could replicate the problem. He put it on the track and got her going. After a couple of minutes of it running flawlessly, I asked him to speed it up a bit because it wasn't doing it at slow speeds at the club. He did, and there was still no issues. His track was using O-31 curves (my home track does as well). If I'm not mistaken, the curves at the club are wider. Despite thinking there's nothing wrong with my locomotive, he gave me a couple of possible solutions. The first was to add some solder to the top of the "truck" (I'm not sure what you'd call it), and the other was to try another spring (which he gave me for no charge). He also pointed out that these wheels would touch the frame of the locomotive when turned AND compressed at the same time.
After getting it home, I tried to replicate the derailments. Without the speed control active, I could not get it to derail, even at full throttle. Once the speed control was activated, however, by the time it got to 3/4 throttle it was going MUCH faster than it possibly can without it and would derail something fierce (dang near put a hole in my wall as hard as it came off the track). I also tried shimming the front wheel guide to keep the wheels from contacting the frame. It still derailed at about the same speed as before on my home track. I haven't had the chance to run it on the club track yet with the shim in place.
On the other hand, I'm about 20-30 years or more younger than any of the other O gaugers at the club. Not to mention that at one point, one of them asked me to turn the volume down on my locomotive because "it was making him go deaf". We're in a fairly large facility, and we have 3 layouts of 3 sizes going, plus a G gauge going around the ceiling. On top of that, it's a children's museum, so there are a lot of kids that come up there with their parents and are noisy. I only had the volume on my locomotive at about half, maybe 3/4 volume. When sitting on one side of the O gauge layout, I could hardly hear the whistle when the train was at the other end of the layout. It was also huffing out a really thick plume of smoke (which the kids and parents alike LOVED BTW). The O gaugers didn't say anything about the smoke or the noise (after I turned the volume down).
If the derailment really was the issue, they've got bigger problems than that to attend to. You see, they have a Lionel train pulling some dinosaur cars that comes out when the kids push a doorbell button. That train has power issues as well as derailment issues. Yet they still continue to run it. On top of that, they have a loop of track that has a cut inside a tunnel. That track has 2 trains that run on it. It's set up to where one train starts it all of, then when it clears a switch, the other train takes off in the opposite direction. When the second train stops in the cut, the first takes off again. The cycle is supposed to be continuous. However, it doesn't always work. When the trains do run, they don't collide, it's just that sometimes they just flat out don't run.
Not trying to knock anyone at the club, they all seem like good guys, and I am the new guy at the club. Maybe there was something that I missed.
Anyway, could there possibly be an issue with my train, could it be that the speed just needs to be kept in check, or could it be an issue with the way the track's laid out (there are some rough spots on the track)?
I'm sorry about the long post. I guess I just had a lot to say.
Thanks in advance,
Shannon
