Performance w.Metal vs Plastic Trucks

might help to add a little weight to those cars with plastic trucks.

Perhaps due to my layout design with no grades, I have no problems with plastic trucks mixed with die-cast.

I'm building a short train made up of cars with Athearn trucks, and do have to add weight to the cars for tracking purposes.

I use mostly Weaver plastic trucks, because they roll better and track excellent.  I find they flex better on not so good industrial area trackage. And I can lower the car height considerably. I like the Athearn plastic trucks also, excellent spring action actually goes down under heavy load, not good for the Die cast cars. Atlas, MTH, k-line, and Lionel are so stiffly sprung I don't see how you can get them to compress. I have not tried the Weaver sprung trucks. I weight all my light cars a little and use Kadee couplers.

Clem k 

The weight and/or the sprung action of the metal trucks seem to make the cars far better runners. Do your cars with plastic trucks always hold the rails? What say you?

I second it's the weight on the wheels. Most metal trucks perform better because of the weight on the wheels. The springing action found on many metal trucks provides better stability-esp on rough track. However I found when I weight my freight cars to the NMRA specs of 5oz plus 1oz per car length inch, they roll much better than cars without the weight correction. Cars with NMRA weighted  guidelines perform better when operating with the overweighted die cast cars too.

Metal trucks always run better for me. It's the weight, so I'd add some or do what I do and swap out the plastic for metal trucks. Real easy thing to do and it makes the cars much more enjoyable to use in my opinion.

I agree it has more to do with the proper weighting of the car more than the trucks for good operation.

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Dennis

I have one car with plastic trucks. I added weight to NMRA standards. That will be my first, last and only piece of rolling stock with plastic trucks, ever. Metal works much better weighted or not.

Actually I don't run any plastic anymore either.  One fellow acquaintance I met at a hobby shop said he really liked the plastic wheels because they were so quiet.  I tried to clean a plastic wheel once with a Dremel rotary brush.  Duh!  It melted. 

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Dennis

Good afternoon

Gentlemen I'm still looking for Weaver Delrin wheels sets.

Paying $1.00 per axle with Delrin wheels…….Three rail Weaver only.

Clem k

If your cars are up to the NMRA standard for weight (or a little over), the cars track much better, whether they have plastic or metal trucks. Every one of my cars gets checked for weight during the Kadee conversion process, even the caboose. Everything rolls much better with a little weight.