Tilting cars


G

gnbuilder

New Member
I've been noticing lately that a fair number of my rolling stock rides with the body of the car tilted to one side. This is very evident when you look at the end of the car in relation to the trucks. My sub-roadbed, roadbed and track are all level. I thought maybe the holes for mounting the trucks had been located off-center in the mold when the cars were made, but a quick check of the hole location ruled that out. The only other thing I could think of that would cause this situation would be the weight installed off-center. Has anyone else run into this situation and if so, how do you correct it?

Thanks, gnbuilder
 
Possibly two things come to mind. One is that the screws holding the trucks to the car are too loose or the raised mount where the truck attaches is not flat or slightly uneven. Just a thought.


Larry
 
Generally you want one track fastened to the car so that it can rotate freely but NOT rock. Then the other truck is fastened so that it can rock slightly to accommodate imperfect track work.
 
gnbuilder said:
I've been noticing lately that a fair number of my rolling stock rides with the body of the car tilted to one side. This is very evident when you look at the end of the car in relation to the trucks. My sub-roadbed, roadbed and track are all level. I thought maybe the holes for mounting the trucks had been located off-center in the mold when the cars were made, but a quick check of the hole location ruled that out. The only other thing I could think of that would cause this situation would be the weight installed off-center. Has anyone else run into this situation and if so, how do you correct it?
Click to expand...
By any chance have they been converted from plastic to metal wheel sets? If so, perhaps the replacement axles were not long enough. We noticed this at the club when we put Proto-2000 wheel sets into Athearn trucks. Loose and wobbledy tilting cars running down the track.
 
Similar situation that I have experienced is that the car body may not be mounted square on the car's frame. Had that problem with several Athearn Blue Box 50' cars.

Could be your problem.

Thanks.

Greg
 
Cars used to be made where the 2 trucks balanced on 3 points. (Think of the stability of a tripod or tricycle.) If they ride on 4 points it could be very hard to level them.
 
I had a few that tilted and found that the trucks were too loose.
On some I needed to file a very small amount from the truck screw mounting area.
This was to let the screw tighten up just a little more.
 
I've done a number of the things suggested above to "level" an HO railcar. Once in a while I notice a railcar leaning a little bit, and just leave it alone. Why? I've seen many 1to1 scale railcars, especially boxcars, leaning. I spent 1.5 years as a brakeman in the mid-1970s, usually working 6 days/week (back when the hog-law was 14 hours), and looking back down the trains these "leaners" are easy to spot. But as long as they don't wobble much we didn't have a problem; i.e. they were safe to move like that.

DougC
 
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