Derailment issues

Michael,  I am by no means an expert or a repair technician.  You have narrowed the problem down to the new(to you) cars and engine.  Could it be the wheels/axles are out of gauge?  If the derailing only happens on one crossover, it could be that the wheels/axles are on the low side of the + or - specs and the crossover is on the high side and you got caught in the middle.  That's the first thing that comes to mind.   John in Lansing, ILL

It would help if you could post photos of the cars on the trackwork in question. I'm wondering about the setup with the couplers - are the coupler arms sprung? When the cars are coupled, are the coupler arms skewing the trucks when entering a curve, or on S-curves in particular? Are the wheel flanges climbing on the switch frog guardrails?

Addendum: later info shows your trackwork in question is a crossing, not a crossover.

I can post pictures but it happens at both of my 11 degree crossover....the cars don't want to stay on the track, they want to take the cross track as if they were going through a switch if that makes sense.  Again I have several MTH premier cars and never an issue.

rattler21 posted:

Michael,  I am by no means an expert or a repair technician.  You have narrowed the problem down to the new(to you) cars and engine.  Could it be the wheels/axles are out of gauge?  If the derailing only happens on one crossover, it could be that the wheels/axles are on the low side of the + or - specs and the crossover is on the high side and you got caught in the middle.  That's the first thing that comes to mind.   John in Lansing, ILL

I agree. Also, look for low hanging un coupler tabs snagging.

My best guess, wheelsets out of gauge,recommend taking trucks off car and running the individual trucks over the crossovers by hand using a flashlight to see what the wheel flanges are doing. as the truck transverses the crossover. 

I would check the pickup rollers that power the car interior lights.  The springs could be too stiff, or the rollers out of alignment so they lift the wheels or skew them as they bounce through the crossing.  Could be a similar problem with the engine pilot or its rollers.

Dennis

Dennis posted:

I would check the pickup rollers...

I like this idea as your first check.  Which direction is the hinge point of the pickup roller facing when it goes over the switch and derails?  If it's facing rear, then there is a greater chance that could be your problem.

I had a freight car that would constantly derail on a switch.  As the pickup roller briefly left the center rail and touched the side rail of the diverging track, it would briefly extend to it's fullest at the gap and would not properly retract when it made contract with the diverging track thus causing  derail.

I fixed the problem by gluing in a small piece of foam to the rails to "bridge the gap".

Have Fun!

Ron

See attached vid in slow mo.   The wheel is hitting the triangle piece ( sorry don't know what that is called ).  Can I file it back some. Afraid if I do I will mess up other right of way 

Yikes this is a tough one...is there a way to compare the flange gauge on the pass  cars? It seems to me like the cars  gauge is  out  one way or the other. It's really hard to tell from the video. We did have one of these crossovers on our layout but removed it because of derailing. It only derailed   when pushing   cars over the thing but was ok pulling.

 ...pulling a couple of car over the  switch with your hand might determine exactly  where the trouble begins.

I have two of these crossovers happening at both - pulling or pushing with most of the cars.   

Have you looked at the track connections to see if you have a high spot or burr that is sticking up? I had to file down some brand new Ross 042 switches on my layout, the metal wasn't 100% trimmed off and a very small piece called a burr was sticking up.

Also with working with Gargraves and tubular adapter pins to O gauge tubular track I had to file down some areas with my dremel tool & grinding wheel bit. Very important to check your track work! 

Not all brands of trains like all brands of track, some trains run better on one brand of track then another, I have noticed this with large MTH steam engines I have.

Lee Fritz

In the past few years, there have been a few derailing issues on my layout. They have been caused by bent axles, out of spec wheel gauge and in one case the frog on the switch needed to be filed lower for the wheels to not jump off the rails.  Never had an issue with Ross Switches but if its a Ross Switch call Steve and ask his opinion. He's always very helpful.

Your wheels are definitely out of gauge.  Wheels too close together.  The wheel away from the camera is dropping into the track and popping the other side out.  I have this problem with MTH consolidations, only one axle on the front.  Two axle trucks (closer like freight trucks) have no problem.

I you can put the camera down on the track in front of the car (don't short out the rails) and watch both wheels.

Re-gauging  the axles will fix the problem.  

Do not do any filing on the switch.  You may cause more problems.

Dan

I really cannot tell what your crossover looks like. Do you have a full overhead shot? But from what I can see, the wheels are hitting that triangle piece. The gap may be too small or the wheels out of gauge. 

Attached is overhead shot.   It is clear to me the wheels are hitting that triangle causing it to jump  if I rolled it slowly with my hand I see it hit I think I've narrowed it to one side of three cars I ran the other five cars a couple loops without incident then the tires came off my ACL E-8 so I'm done for the night - having a bad run. 

OK. Your crossover as you call it is a double slip switch. It may be your wheels more than the switch. Send a photo to Steve at Ross for his opinion.

Steve will tell you this:

". . . the back to back distance between the wheels (flanges) is not less than 1.025" and the distance between the place where the flanges meet the treads is not more than 1.245".

You will need a caliper to check this, of course.

Dennis

This is not a double slip switch but an 11 degree crossover. Anyway I would  remove it from the mail line or completely from the layout. Everything has to be perfect  for this one to function.   We took ours out because of  too many minor derailments. 

Thanks to everyone for giving some thought to my little problem.   Responses have been varied.  I haven't had much time the last week to work on it.   I hate to take them out for just one train.  Like I said all other cars seem to do fine.   However I did spend a few minutes this evening trying to determine the operational changes that be required if I did take them out.     Will spend some time exploring that option 

Gregg posted:

This is not a double slip switch but an 11 degree crossover. Anyway I would  remove it from the mail line or completely from the layout. Everything has to be perfect  for this one to function.   We took ours out because of  too many minor derailments. 

Agree. My bad.

Have a very similar problem.  Try putting a small piece of electrical tape over the offending part of the switch.  Be sure to have tape cover the inside part of the triangle piece where the wheels go through.  The tape kind of helps the wheels go the correct direction rather than allowing them to inadvertently slip the wrong way through the switch. I have this issue with a Ross Double Crossover.  Only certain cars have the issue but the tape seemed to solve the issue.  Try it.  BigRail 

I do like the tape solution very low tech my kind of solution.  I did have some sucess last night entering the crossover from one direction and staying that way.   No derailments.  The idea of taking them off has me thinking ...... Might like some different options that might provide.   Just need to experiment some more 

Thanks .....