Questions about Fast track and Nickel Silver

Your locomotive will have the drive wheels pressed on the axle.  One wheel has to slip a little going around a curve since the outside rail is longer than the inside wheel.  When a locomotive goes around a curve it is trying to tip to the outside of the curve since the center of gravity is several inches above the rail.  This increases the weight down on the outside wheels and reduces the weight in the inside wheels.  Due to this weight shift toward the outside of the curve, all the wheel slip due to the curve occurs on the inside wheels and all of the tractive power is transmitted by the outside wheels.   This results in things wearing different between the inside and outside wheels and rails.   You can do a couple of things you can do to reduce the problem including turn your train around occasionally, run at lower speeds, use terack with a larger radius or build a figure eight track plan.  

Don:  The fan is working but the level of smoke will not continue to supply fluid to the resistor so the faster the engine goes there is no smoke at all.

I am wondering if you let the smoke unit burn dry once and the filament inside has become singed around the heating coil.   This can happen in just a few seconds

Don,

   Let me begin by saying my multi level Christmas layout is 90% FasTrack, and that your FasTrack is not causing your problems.  If you use the rubber traction tires on your engines, which ever side you are running your traction tier on will blacken that FasTrack rail.  I do not use traction tiers on any of my engines, their weight alone on the FasTrack moves the engines quite well even with a large number of rolling stock.  IMO get rid of your rubber traction tiers, clean up your FasTrack with some CRC on a soft cloth and your black rail problem will disappear immediately.  Your second problem is operator effort you probably ran your engine dry more than a couple times, and the smoke unit is now damaged.  The smoke unit will probably need to be replaced.  

PCRR/Dave

Pine Creek Railroad posted:

Don,  my Christmas layout is 90% FasTrack, & your FasTrack is not causing your problems.  If you use rubber traction tires on your engines, which ever side you are running your traction tire on will blacken that rail.  I do not use traction tires on my engines, their weight alone moves them quite well even with a large number of rolling stock.  IMO get rid of your rubber traction tires, clean your track with some CRC on a soft cloth & your black rail problem will disappear.  You probably ran your engine dry and the smoke unit is now damaged.  It will probably need to be replaced.  PCRR/Dave

Dave, Don is speaking of Lionel's S-Gauge 2-rail FastTrack.  I don't know if our issues in O gauge can be transmitted over to the S gauge version.

Where does all the black on the center rail come from?

RR, 

   Good point, the N gauge stuff is quite a bit lighter for sure.

PCRR/Dave

Roundhouse Bill posted:

Don:  The fan is working but the level of smoke will not continue to supply fluid to the resistor so the faster the engine goes there is no smoke at all.

I am wondering if you let the smoke unit burn dry once and the filament inside has become singed around the heating coil.   This can happen in just a few seconds

Bill,

     I think I know what you are implying there wasn't enough smoke fluid and therefore it burnt the cotton batting. Lionel tells to infuse only four-six drops and that doesn't last but a few seconds. I thought I was putting too much in so I backed off. I used the former Lionel smoke fluid for O-27 and that smelled like what was in the engine from the start and it worked better but it didn't go much longer. I don't like the smell of the O-27 Fluid but Lionel doesn't recommend its' use only the premium Smoke fluid.

     Ok, I will try to check out the batting and change it if necessary. Thank you for you thoughts on my problems.

Take care and Happy Railroading

Don 

RadioRon posted:

Pine Creek Railroad posted:

Don,  my Christmas layout is 90% FasTrack, & your FasTrack is not causing your problems.  If you use rubber traction tires on your engines, which ever side you are running your traction tire on will blacken that rail.  I do not use traction tires on my engines, their weight alone moves them quite well even with a large number of rolling stock.  IMO get rid of your rubber traction tires, clean your track with some CRC on a soft cloth & your black rail problem will disappear.  You probably ran your engine dry and the smoke unit is now damaged.  It will probably need to be replaced.  PCRR/Dave

Dave, Don is speaking of Lionel's S-Gauge 2-rail FastTrack.  I don't know if our issues in O gauge can be transmitted over to the S gauge version.

Yes I was talking about the American Flyer 2 rail Fast-track but thank you for your input as well because some does apply to S Gauge.

Take care and Happy Railroading

Don

Thank you all your information is greatly helpful. With your responses I will try to resolve my issues.

Happy Railroading

Don

Hi S Gauge Forum,

     I have analyzed all of your comments and proceeded to rectify the problems as you have suggested. As Far as the flyer fast track dog bone oval and the blackened outside rail wetness follows. I cleaned the complete oval. I try not to use any abrasive materials to clean the track and as for the liquid cleaners I have found any residue will react with the pull more tires and cause them to fail. The black just wipes off with a soft dry cloth. I have a mixture of 27" Radius curves and 20" Radius curves and after cleaning the complete layout I ran the trains for about 15 minutes and the outside rail was covered again. I guess I will live with this blackened outside rail because it doesn't seem to affect the running of the trains but only makes a mess when I break down the layout and put the trains away. So it's on to the other problem of loss of smoke production.

     Bill: I looked at the smoke unit cotton pads and they seemed to be just fine. So I went to the other hand books I receive with my other smoking engines with Legacy control and Lionel at that time they suggested to instill 20 drops of Premium Fluid at startup and wallah both engines are smoking very well at all speeds but the color is more transparent then at the beginning. This seems to me that the O-27 Fluid was used at the factory and that has a more dense white coloring

     Thank you all for your helpful suggestions to get me back on track.

Don