I reviewed Mr. Trenkman’s letter: “Con-Cor N-scale Gauge Woes” in the recent issue of your magazine and, after some thought, was prompted to forward the following thoughts:
1: What is the quality of the trackwork on Mr. Trenkman’s layout?
I have a Bachmann 2-6-6-2 and a Con-Cor 2-10-2 as well as a number of other of the newer “finer scale” N-Scale locomotives. Upon receipt of these gems, I test each on a Code 45-ish test track, and they seem to run very fine. I do this because I use Code 55 track throughout my layout. The flanges and clearances are such on these locomotives to permit clearance of the “spikes” on Code 55 track. The fact that the locomotives do not pass gracefully through turnouts may be caused by speed or wheel gauge or the manner in which the Code 55 track was spiked into place.
1A: Speed — 1:1 scale locomotives are given mandatory speed restriction as the frog size of a turnout through which they are expected to operate, decreases. It is a seldom occurrence that a 2-10-2 would even pass through a #4 or a #6-frogged turnout — and if so, it would be at a very, very slow speed.
1B: Wheel gauge — How many of us take a new purchase from the box and place it on the track and turn up the throttle. True, manufacturing methods should guarantee correct wheel gauge — but it takes only a few minutes to verify correct gauge — so why not do it?
1C: Track gauge — When scale track is spiked down, the gauge of the track may easily narrow, thus bringing it outside the operable limits of correctly gauged rolling stock. Additionally, track manufacturers do also make mistakes so a check of the track gauge would be in order.
2: It is all nice and well that Model Railroad News uses only quality Kato track for its tests. The only problem with this is that Code 55 track is rapidly becoming popular because of its appearance, and because many of the new releases are manufactured with wheel flanges which have been produced for this lighter rail. I, for one, prefer the test reports of new releases described in Model Railroad News over those in other magazines. Would it be too much to ask Model Railroad News to create a reasonable length of N-scale test track using Code 55 test track including a couple of #8 turnouts; and run a quick test of new releases on this track. A report of the operation of the new release would be very valuable to me, especially as the “fineness” of scale of the new N-scale releases coming off the assembly line improves.
3: Perhaps, also, a short article on “where to find scale references and gauges,” and “how to check wheel gauge vs. track gauge,” would be a very appropriate insertion into your fine magazine, especially in this era of improving N-scale quality.
Lawrence A. Gueller
Legend Lake Wisconsin
Checking the gauge of both the track and all of the wheelsets is essential. I’ve seen molded plastic N-scale wheelsets which had some molding flash left on the back which hung up in switches; either replacing the wheelset or filing off the flash fixed the problem. I’ve also seen track in every scale from 1:1 on down “regauge” itself due to heat or other circumstances.
Finally, gauging problems may not be consistent over a run of a particular model. Thus, even if our sample is fine, yours may not be — or the other way around. As part of the acceptance inspection for all new rolling stock, a check of wheel gauges is in order. The more you do it, the better and faster you get. — Ed.
What a surprise it was to see my e-mail published in your fine magazine! It appears, as often happens, there is some confusion as to the intent of my message. I didn’t mean to imply that code 55 track was a standard for N-scale. However, I have two NMRA N Standards gauges. One is the Mark IV, developed by the NMRA, Inc., and one by Micro-Trains, item MT-1055. They both have identical track and wheel width measurements. Don’t these gauges set the standard for track width and wheel width for N-scale track, engines, and rolling stock? I measured my Atlas code 55 as well as my Atlas code 80 track, and they both conform to the NMRA Standard gauges’ track width measurements.
What does not conform, are the wheel width of many N-scale engines manufactured today as mentioned in my previous e-mail. They almost always have the wheels too close together. This causes them to wobble somewhat on any track, but most particularly, [they will] not go smoothly through the frogs on my Atlas code 55 turnouts. I would think that these discrepancies would be an easy fix for most any manufacturer. But it won’t get fixed if we don’t let them know. I hope this clears up what I meant.
On another note, regarding David Otte’s review of the Kato California Zephyr passenger cars, as he mentions in his article, the dome cars have been reworked. He also mentions that these cars take two light kits. While that is true of the old Kato dome cars, that is not true of this new set. I have installed light kits in every car of this great set, and unless I’m missing something, these new domes only have a place for the installation of one light kit. This actually is a big plus, because of ease of installation and half the cost.
Keep up the tremendous work you all do. Until I read the “Thanks” article on page 5 of the April issue, I had no idea how many people and how much work it took to get a magazine to the presses. You are to be commended. I eagerly look forward to every issue.
Tom Trenkmann
Yorba Linda, CA
Switches are the hardest item to check but are potentially the most troublesome part of any model railroad trackwork. Some of them rely on flanges riding on the bottom of the flangeway of the frog to keep from wobbling; this is not a good practice as flange depth can vary from model to model. I have “corrected” this in HO, filing down the offending flangeway, only to have cars falling in the “chuckholes” at the frog point.
Meanwhile, the NMRA track and wheel gauge is a small investment into your sanity. It may not fix problems, but at least you’ll know from where they are coming!— Ed.
I have the Prodigy Advance system and I love it! But... I do not love the way loco body shells are attached to the chassis, especially P2K. These things are driving me crazy, and when I finally do get them off, I have broken off detail parts and this makes the whole thing an aggravation which it is not supposed to be. How have you been handling this issue?
Doug Allen
Santa Monica, CA
Many models (especially Athearn’s) come apart by removing the couplers. In fact, most HO diesels do require coupler removal. There are specific exceptions, but you should get into the habit of looking at this issue carefully. Some models have separate sills (the walkway and handrails) from the main body shell, and they want to come apart during removal of the shell. I heard of one poor fellow who accidentally tore his loco shell in half while removing it.
The other part of the story is that consumers have a tendency to lift the model by its shell, so model builders feel compelled to produce a product which stays together under those circumstances. If you get into the habit of using a foam loco holder, removing couplers, and seeking out frame screws, then you’ll have less trouble. Finally, if you learn to lift the loco by circling your thumb and fingers around the shell and lifting by the fuel tank, you can leave the body screws out. — Ed.
I enjoy your Model Railroad News even more than the other model railroad magazines and publications which I receive. Yours has a more friendly, but “newsy” writing quality to it.
Here’s a suggestion: How about in each issue, you include a “Tips For Modelers” column? The first one might be on how some of the more “expert” model railroad folks clean their freight car wheels.
My railroad has over 250 freight cars on my HO layout. I have a fetish about clean wheels and track, and clean wheels and track about every 3 or 4 months or so. Each wheel of the 8 wheels per car is laboriously scrubbed with a toothbrush dipped in denatured alcohol while I carefully inspect the wheel surfaces by peering through a headset magnifier.
WHAT A CHORE! THERE HAS TO BE A BETTER WAY!
Francis Tepedino
San Diego, CA
I am rolling in some info for your readers about plastic wheels. Our Club has over 1,800 feet of track, mostly nickel silver, with a few brass turnouts. We used to have to clean our track once or twice every six months, mostly because of crud build up. In 2000 we started converting all of the Club rolling stock (over 300 pieces), to Proto 2000 metal wheels. We have completed that project and found that our track stays much cleaner and we have wheel sets that have been running since the beginning of the project that are just as clean as the day they were installed. The initial expense was large, but we have saved untold hours of track cleaning by doing so.
Our Club allows members to bring their own equipment to run on the layout, and part of our Club standards is that the equipment be equipped with metal wheels. We also have a wheel cleaning track that all motive power must run through on a regular basis, especially visiting power. We use Aero-Car track and wheel cleaner which does a fine job and doesn’t seem to leave a residue. I have a half-gallon jar of plastic wheel sets, some almost brand new, and most of them have some gunk to lumps of gunk. That material can only go two places, onto track or into the garbage by scraping it off. We have one member who feels so strongly about this that he recently purchased almost $200 worth of the Proto 2000 wheel sets to convert his own collection of rolling stock. In our opinion, as a Club with over 30 members, metal wheels are the way to go. Two additional benefits to metal wheels are they sound much more realistic and they improve rolling quality, especially if the journals are reamed out when they are installed.
Bruce Blanford
President, Eastern Cascades Model Railroad Club – Bend, OR
We read with interest the letter from Don Courliss concerning track contamination from plastic wheelsets. We at Tony’s Train Exchange have had a solution for several years.
Our all-brass CMX track cleaning cars are constructed to handle the aggressive solvents (used with utmost caution) that will remove all contaminants including the plastic residue left by plastic wheels.
Residue from plastic wheels is considered an “organic solvent” by chemists. Organics tends to be “stickier” than other contaminants and are harder to remove. Lacquer thinner used in conjunction with the CMX in a well-ventilated space does an excellent job.
Please refer to an independent chemists report as to the veracity of this claim [at the web site listed below].
http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/cmx_chemist_review.htm
Tony’s Train Exchange
Essex Jct., VT
Toll free: 800-978-3472
Our town is on UP’s KP branch. When UP announced, after laying continuous rail, that the maximum train speed would be increased to 40 MPH, the town fathers looked into whether or not they could mandate a lower speed. Citizens were concerned with the hurtling mass staying on the tracks vis-à-vis the businesses and homes built close to the tracks. I have pictures of one derailment that unloaded grain cars in back yards, cleaned up with vacuum trucks.
The City found that it could not dictate train speed, preempted by federal jurisdiction and rules that said if the roadbed and track were up to standard, the railroad could run at whatever speed the standards allowed. (Sorry, I cannot give you a citation for the rules — as I remember, someplace in the 49CFR.)
The best the city could do is [measure the] track [speeds] with radar and make complaints when approved speeds were being exceeded. They did for a while, but there were so few times that the trains were doing at the most one or two MPH greater than the limit that it was not worth the effort. What was more controlling on speeds were curves east and west of town and the slowing down to enter and the speeding up out of the passing siding east of town.
Actually, the increased speed turned out to have a beneficial impact — the seven grade crossings cleared much quicker when the 100-car coal and grain trains come through.
John D’Aloia Jr.
St. Marys, KS
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