NYO&W
Member
This is just my own opinion/observation:
After the first season plastic wheel sets were banned from running on my layout. I find that they consistently deposit a thin film of plastic on the rails which then re-deposits on the wheels of my locomotives, resulting in electrical contact issues. I was faced with frequent running problems and constant need for cleaning the drive wheels on my locomotives. This problem could not be blamed on traction tires because none of my locomotives had traction tires at the time. Now I have several locos that do have traction tires with none of the same dirt transfer issues that I’ve had with the plastic wheel sets.
The problem immediately went away once I began operating rolling stock with metal wheel sets only, or those that I’ve converted from plastic to metal wheel sets. Of course now I cannot operate Magnematic couplers in the traditional way but I can live with the trade-off by using a manual pick to do so.
Has anyone experienced the same or have a different opinion?
After the first season plastic wheel sets were banned from running on my layout. I find that they consistently deposit a thin film of plastic on the rails which then re-deposits on the wheels of my locomotives, resulting in electrical contact issues. I was faced with frequent running problems and constant need for cleaning the drive wheels on my locomotives. This problem could not be blamed on traction tires because none of my locomotives had traction tires at the time. Now I have several locos that do have traction tires with none of the same dirt transfer issues that I’ve had with the plastic wheel sets.
The problem immediately went away once I began operating rolling stock with metal wheel sets only, or those that I’ve converted from plastic to metal wheel sets. Of course now I cannot operate Magnematic couplers in the traditional way but I can live with the trade-off by using a manual pick to do so.
Has anyone experienced the same or have a different opinion?