Athearn AUTO MAX CARS

[Tennessee_Southern]

Hey everyone I have a couple of questions I need help with cause Athearn is no help.

I have 8 AutoMax auto carrierss by Athearn Genesis. All of which continue to derail on curves a 28" curve!!! Except one of them does not and it has the short draw bar in between the diaphram.

I have tried all the cars with the long and short draw bars one of them I figured the issue out it was not built with a weight inside one end. So that is elimanated.

Only thing Athearn can say is they are good for a 24" curve..... Which i guess their track is perfrect.... Anyway the Atlas Articulated auto rack works great and all my other equipment, except the auto maxs the want to ride up and bow out.

Example of a typical train: 7 automax 2 engines just behind the engines the first car into the curve the lead wheels ride up off the rail derailing the center wheel set then the rest of the group.

If anyone has any idead feel free to tell me PLEASE

Thanks

Allen

 

[Larry]

I have 28" curves on my layout & they derail everytime. I even tried to clip the corners & that didn't work. I would appreciate the same kind of suggestions that Allen is asking for. I even thought about putting longer trucks under them & maybe that might work, but I haven't tried it yet.

Larry

 

[CP9302]

I found that the semi-scale wheels caused issues with less then perfrect track work. There is less room for error with the smaller wheel width. I'd check the guage of the wheels and track where the problem occures.

You could try replacing the wheels with non-scale ones as a test as well.

 

[jbaakko]

Huh, I must have scored a good batch, mine have survived 22"! We'll see how they do once I go larger in the future.

 

[Tennessee_Southern]

AutoMax Issue Solved

Alright guys here are some suggestion for you. I spent 4 hours yesterday morning ripping the curve out I used 24" snap track which they will operate on. I discovered a small bow in the road bed and Iam talking small!!! Sanded that out, still had a derailing issue. I then wedged a 1x2 underneath the bench work and shimmed trying to elevate the track it got better, so I got the bwo worked out of the benchwork.

Still had the derailments I loosened up the trucks just a little bit more than what you would a normal car. The center truck were it has the 2 wheel guards that come down on the body I cut the INSIDE are out so the wheels dont hit the body. With those modifications they worked great on every curve but the Hell Curve.

I super elevated the outside of the curve made it worse. So I did something that I still think is unusual I shimmed the inside of the curve and they work perfect I dont understand how something that is solid flat and level would make a car ride off the rail but shimming the inside of the curve does help.

Hope this helps anyone. Oh and one more thing 2 of my Auto Max cars only had weights in one end F - for Athearn