Traction Tire Alternatives

An option that can work in cases where you have a lot of wheels and weight is to just eliminate them. 

I recently ran a 24+test reported elsewhere using a five to six year old Railking loco I had not run in 19 months.  Prior to the test, the only problem I had setting it up and checking it out is that it kept throwing its traction tires - from the first minute I ran it after 19 months, it threw all its tires - one after another, sometimes two at a time, and again every time I would position them back on (none broke, they just came off).  I finally just removed all four.   It made no difference in how it ran or pulled.  It subsequently pulled ten hopper cars (three of them very heavy cast metal ones) and a caboose around my layout for over a day without any slippage or problems, including once a loop up a long (18 foot) 3 percent slope.  

Frankly I was surprised, but it could not have worked any better with tires than that.  Of course, it is a heavy loco and it had 12 other powered drivers, so its not your average situation . . .

That could do it.

.....

Dennis

OK, I'll chime in here.

I have thrown tires, on my Big boy with the bad motor. It constantly cogged badly and ran slower that the other motor. This made one set of drivers push the other straining the traction tires on both trucks. It went through several rounds of attempted repair, Replacing the motor finally fixed it.

Other that that one engine I have not thrown a single tire in 4 years of operation. I have 6 engines that run regularly on MTH RealTrax - Flat top track I might point out.

I do Run O-54 and O-72 curves.

As rubber tires age they can become brittle and break, or can become over-elastic and stretch. In the latter case they tend to come off easily.

In either case they must be replaced.

Well the Loctite brand of silicone that I used before, did not keep well in the tube i.e. it became very thick.  I have some snapshots of me taking off the remains of the old tire, and a movie of me struggling with the too thick silicone applying the new tire.  It did not turn out well so I removed it tonight and went to Lowe's to look for another brand I found on the Internet.  This new stuff went on beautifully and it is now curing. One of the things I didn't like about the Loctite brand is that it is clear.  This makes it difficult to see how much you are getting on the wheel since you are seeing right through it.  This new stuff is red.  We'll see how it is in the morning before I recommend it.

Since only a couple of you are interested in doing this type of fix, I won't post the photos here but will send them to you off line.  If your email is not in your profile, send me an email.  My email address is in my profile.

.....

Dennis

Then why do non-scale wheel locomotives need traction tires?

...love my Bull Frog Snot...

Think about it.

3-railer use tight curves, steep grades and light engines.

I have 3rd Rail brass steam engines that pull 40 cars without traction tires but these engines were designed to run on scale 2 rail layouts. Probably a lot of 3-rail diecast engines would be OK on 3-rail layouts without traction tires if they were built with large minimum radius and low grades. 

First of all theScale  engines are properly weighted to provide good traction. Second the rail, trackage, have much wider curves and lower grades. If you havew large grades then 2 rail can not pull many cars with one engine either.

So the reason is heavier engines with better traction, lower grades, wider curves, better (scale) track design.

 Freight and passenger cars are kept to a weight standard , also

So, would grades be the deciding issue?  I won't have grades on my railroad, so,

should I throw a t-tire now & then, I'm thinking of just running without them.

I've read stories here of installing new tires being a major p.i.a.  Neither am I

planning on running unusually long trains;  six heavyweight pass. cars or 12 to

15- car freights would be about it.

     Hoppy