Could I have some responses on is it best to weight cars or not ?
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@Bill Grafmiller posted:Could I have some responses on is it best to weight cars or not ?
Definitely better to weight all your pieces of rolling stock. Check out the NMRA Standards (on their website), but a basic rule of thumb for O-Scale equipment is 1 oz = 10 tons.
How many cars are you going to pull? If you are pulling short trains just put the heavier cars up front.
As I tend to run scale equipment, I weight all my Weaver boxcars which come from the factory ( well there is no more factory ) as very lite weighing cars. My Weaver open hoppers are always loaded with coal which seems to be enough added weight. I do have some added car weight in a couple Weaver open hoppers though. The rest of the Weaver line of freight cars seem not to need extra weight ... at least that is my experience. I find I don't need to weight scale Lionel, MTH, K line, or Atlas freight cars.
A friend of mine used to glue large flat washers from Lowes etc in Weaver Boxcars . I picked up adhesive 1oz wheel balancing weights in ebay and they seem to work fine. The weights are also available at Harbor freight.
The single best thing I ever did on my layouts (both HO scale and O scale) to improve operational reliability was to weight the cars to the NMRA Standards. Derailments stopped, cars ran quieter, coupled and uncoupled better...you get the idea.
Here's the full NMRA Standards & Practices page.
The bottom line - DO IT!
Mine run much better weighted to NMRA standards, 11 pennies =1 oz
Thank you Rich for the link to the NMRA Standards - as its a huge help.
I agree with Rich.
There's a vast improvement realized for rolling stock (and some locomotives) by adding weight. Now even the most basic MPC era plastic pieces roll effortlessly over switches and don't string line around tight curves.
Also just so I'm understanding the NMRA chart correctly, 5 ounces is always a constant number for O rolling stock, and this would make a 10 inch boxcar 15 ounces...a 15 inch passenger car would be 20 ounces?
Tom
Weaver had weights for hoppers.
Tom, your analysis is correct.
| BASIC WEIGHT | 5 ounces |
| Add 1 ounce for each inch of body length | |
| 10" Car Length | 10 additional ounces |
| Total weight = 15 ounces | |
With short trains you can get away with shuffling the cars with light ones at the back. If you're trying to run a 50-60 car freight, you'll find it much more difficult to get reliable running without balancing all the weights. You don't have to be to the ounce, just don't have a significant difference in weight between similar sized cars. You will also find if you have some diecast cars, they are over the NMRA weight specification, so at that point, put those in front.
Thank you so much for your response and information. So it will be done. I have tire weights that are .25oz with the adhesive backing will use that to add weight. I think that will work.
@Bill Grafmiller posted:Thank you so much for your response and information. So it will be done. I have tire weights that are .25oz with the adhesive backing will use that to add weight. I think that will work.
Yes, although they are quite expensive, those "stick-on weights" work very well inside freight cars. Also, remember to get & use a good quality digital scale, as it makes the job much easier.
I "shoot" my weights on. 
I have about 30# of these bullets that I was not impressed with for their original purpose. Since they were just gathering dust, I uses them for car and engine weights. Hot glue sticks them on. This HHP-8 was too light, adding a bit over a pound of weight made it run and pull like a new engine.
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I got the weights on sale 3 years ago a case of them. At the time I said what do I need these for but something inside me said I would need them. I am not sure about the bullet loading
@Bill Grafmiller posted:I am not sure about the bullet loading
They work great, I've used them in probably a dozen engines and 20-30 freight cars. What's not to be sure of, they're lead and heavy for their size, all you need the weight to be!
@Bill DeBrooke posted:How many cars are you going to pull? If you are pulling short trains just put the heavier cars up front.
Yes - and this is actually prototypical occasionally.
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So far as the weight goes, I bought a lead roof vent 20+ years ago at H.Depot or somewhere. About 1/8" thick; when I want weights, I cut some appropriate pieces off with my tin snips, flatten, and attach them with Goo, 2-sided tape or whatever works best and neatly in that spot.
Yes - I wash my hands after working with lead, and I never lick my rolling stock. Paint over the weights if you fear casual contact - but really, lead is not plutonium.
I wonder if they still make lead roof vents?
A temporary layout/Christmas layout guy's comments. I have a few thoughts
MTH rolling stock seems plenty hefty IMO.
Before I starting buying MTH stuff I tried weighting cars. It didn't work for me. WHY? I would say it was because I, at that time, exclusively used 27" curves - too sharp for the drag. The train stinglined (I think that's the right word for when the rolling stock collapsed inward of the curve). So my comment is that if you're using wider curves, it's not an issue - I can attest to that because when I upped to 42" and 54" curves the derailments went away.
I used to own a 12 car MTH Railking passenger train - it ran perfectly on 42" and 54" curves, including backing up.
so to me it depends on your layout, or more specifically, your curves. On my Christmas layout I can't run trains with 50 cars so I can't comment on that. However, one year just for kicks I created a 2 engine lashup and pulled 24 cars with no extra weight, all MTH rolling stock, with no issues.
- walt
I am thinking it is better, where there is room and accessibility, to divide the required additional weight in two and place equal weights directly over the trucks. This is more of a question than a statement.
GRJ - what if there is a short and a big voltage spike, is there a chance those bullets might start flying!? That would certainly add some excitement to the train room.
Bob
@Bob "O" posted:I am thinking it is better, where there is room and accessibility, to divide the required additional weight in two and place equal weights directly over the trucks. This is more of a question than a statement.
Yes, it is always more advisable to place any/all weight directly over each truck, especially in a boxcar if you desire to leave the door/doors open on a particular car.
GRJ - what if there is a short and a big voltage spike, is there a chance those bullets might start flying!? That would certainly add some excitement to the train room.
For what it's worth, "bullets" don't have any powder load. It is the cartridge that has the powder, and when fired the "bullet" then is expelled out of the gun barrel. Remember, we are NOT talking about artillery projectiles!
Bob
@Bob "O" posted:GRJ - what if there is a short and a big voltage spike, is there a chance those bullets might start flying!? That would certainly add some excitement to the train room.
Only if they look like this Bob, what you see is that I'm using is just a chunk of lead. 
I avoided using loaded cartridges for weights. 
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As respects to traditional size Lionel cars, I've only found a need to add weights to those with plastic trucks. This usually means mid to late 1960's postwar and 1970's MPC cars. I use small fishing sinkers/shots, as needed, wherever I can fit them
In jumping into the O scale hobby, I bought a bunch of old used Lionel cars, from various sources, of many different eras and designs. I have just recently gotten through with screwing down all of my tracks tight, and running trains of 7 or 8 cars. All of my curves are 031.
Right from the get-go, I started to have the stringing problem, in particular with the cheaper 1970s type plastic boxcars.
This week, I reached deep into my box of miscellaneous cars, and found four very old Lionel coal and log cars, all of which are very heavy, with steel trucks, steel couplers, and steel bodies. No plastic at all. They were also very long, so I am guessing that they are for O gauge only, not 027.
I hooked those cars to the engine and ran them at every type of speed, across every switch, and in every direction. I had zero derailments. And, they gave off a realistic click-clack sound as they traveled over every joint in the tracks. (Not the rattle that you get from light plastic cars.)
So, am now a big believer in heavy weight cars.
Does anybody know what years the all-metal cars were made? Were there any all-metal boxcars? (Not including Tintype of course.)
I guess I'll keep my other cars and start adding weight to those as well.
(John, those weights you are using look like flat nose hard-cast .45 acp.)
Mannyrock
@Mannyrock posted:(John, those weights you are using look like flat nose hard-cast .45 acp.)
They are, but they were not nearly as accurate as the copper jacketed FP bullets, so I decided that saving a couple cents a shot wasn't worth it if I couldn't hit anything.
@Mannyrock posted:This week, I reached deep into my box of miscellaneous cars, and found four very old Lionel coal and log cars, all of which are very heavy, with steel trucks, steel couplers, and steel bodies. No plastic at all. They were also very long, so I am guessing that they are for O gauge only, not 027.I hooked those cars to the engine and ran them at every type of speed, across every switch, and in every direction. I had zero derailments. And, they gave off a realistic click-clack sound as they traveled over every joint in the tracks. (Not the rattle that you get from light plastic cars.)
So, am now a big believer in heavy weight cars.
The issue with the diecast cars is all that weight makes long trains much more impractical, especially if you have any grades. I have ten or twelve of them around, but I prefer the cars that weigh in closer to NMRA specifications, some of the diecast cars are twice the NMRA specs.
Hot Water and GRJ,
Thanks for the clarification on bullets and cartridges. Living in Canada, I don't know much about either. I learn something new every day on this Forum. If I went to the local hunting store to buy bullets for my model trains, the police would soon be knocking on my door! Will stick to tire weights, unexciting as they are .
Bob
@gunrunnerjohn posted:The issue with the diecast cars is all that weight makes long trains much more impractical, especially if you have any grades. I have ten or twelve of them around, but I prefer the cars that weigh in closer to NMRA specifications, some of the diecast cars are twice the NMRA specs.
John,
I have somewhere around 30-40 die cast freights and an O54 curved 2.2% grade on my dinky layout. I'm waiting on an atlas crossover (should have it by Tuesday) to piece my layout back together. I'll give them a pull and see how it goes and report back... if, I remember.
@Rich Melvin posted:The single best thing I ever did on my layouts (both HO scale and O scale) to improve operational reliability was to weight the cars to the NMRA Standards. Derailments stopped, cars ran quieter, coupled and uncoupled better...you get the idea.
Here's the full NMRA Standards & Practices page.
The bottom line - DO IT!
I second this-especially if you like to run your trains! Best performance from your model trains ever!
@Bob "O" posted:Hot Water and GRJ,
Thanks for the clarification on bullets and cartridges. Living in Canada, I don't know much about either. I learn something new every day on this Forum. If I went to the local hunting store to buy bullets for my model trains, the police would soon be knocking on my door! Will stick to tire weights, unexciting as they are .
Bob
Actually, if you buy [ like I did] a bag of 7mm shot that will last you a lifetime! Best yet, you can pretty much hide it anywhere! You glue in the shot to the areas of yhe freight car that are hidden like the center car frame underneath or a hollow crates inside a box car over the truck stud, etc.
Lead shot is no longer sold in Canada, due to environmental concerns. Maybe the same in the US? Here, I think they have substituted bismuth for the lead and it's probably not as heavy. So you would need more of it to get the same weight. But perhaps not significant. Thanks for the suggestion, prrhorseshoecurve.
Bob
The weight difference is there, but it's not a deal breaker, 9.6 g/cc for bismuth vs. 11.3 g/cc for lead, about 85% of the weight of lead.
In my very limited experience where the weight is can be as important as how much the car weighs. Lighter cars with die cast trucks seem to perform better than slightly heavier cars.
On "that big auction site", look for stick-on 1/2 ounce and 1/4 ounce automobile wheel weights. Modernly, they're made of iron and are either zinc or black plated. The sellers often ship free. Stick these onto the bottoms of your cars somewhere out of sight.
Also look for a low cost digital postal scale. Weigh your cars and bring them up to NMRA weight standards. Sure, you won't be able to pull as many without adding an engine, but they'll track much better. Also, put the heavier cars up front in the train.
40-foot cars should weigh in at 15 ounces.
50-foot cars should weigh in at 17.5 ounces.
60-foot cars should weigh in at 20.0 ounces.
The basic formula is 5 ounces, plus one ounce for each physical inch of the car's length and this works for "traditional" sized cars as well. Locate your weights over the trucks if you can.
@Bob "O" posted:Hot Water and GRJ,
Thanks for the clarification on bullets and cartridges. Living in Canada, I don't know much about either. I learn something new every day on this Forum. If I went to the local hunting store to buybullets for my model trains, the police would soon be knocking on my door! Will stick to tire weights, unexciting as they are .
Bob
Try fishing weights, they come in several styles including (at one time) pyramid-shaped ones. No police problems with them!
Does anybody have any suggestions about how to weigh Lionel's 30k gallon tank cars? I can't pop the end off, so I don't think it is supposed to, but there is a hatch on the top that opens. I could put bb's in there or something similar, but my worry is that the weight would roll to one end anytime they go up or down a grade.
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As follow up to GRJ's post on weights for lead and bismuth, I Googled the heaviest metals. Iridium and Osmium top the list at over 22.6 g/cc, more than double the weight of lead. Gold is 19.3 g/cc. You can buy this stuff online, so if money is no object ..... For me, I will stick to tire weights, bullets (no cartridges!), shot or fishing weights, as suggested by others in this thread, depending on which is cheapest.
Bob
@sidehack posted:Mine run much better weighted to NMRA standards, 11 pennies =1 oz
Pennies are the cheapest solution at 11 cents per ounce. Readily available, non-toxic, no shopping or delivery. No scale necessary, just count. A nuisance in their native form. Cost easily recoverable. No police investigation (unless obtained by felonious means). Hold with hot glue or caulk.
Bigboy25 I think once the bb’s settle in they won’t move around so much. They should really “lock themselves into each other” Unless your speed , incline or decline are that aggressive .I would not think it would be a issue. Now when boxing the tankers back up I would remove the weight in your situation.
@bigboy25 posted:Does anybody have any suggestions about how to weigh Lionel's 30k gallon tank cars? I can't pop the end off, so I don't think it is supposed to, but there is a hatch on the top that opens. I could put bb's in there or something similar, but my worry is that the weight would roll to one end anytime they go up or down a grade.
You won't get the the weight over the trucks but you could make a pool of glue in the bottom of the tank and drop in the little spherical weights. john
As long as the weight is centered and not favoring one end or the other, I can't imagine it'll make any difference. The body is rigid, so weight in the center is as good as the same amount of weight with half over each truck.
