Derailing Locos - How to troubleshoot?

Folks, I did some running this last week at the club I belong to, and both the locos I brought had problems staying on the track. One of the derailments caused a short (!) that took some time to figure out. (The engineering dept did a shoddy job one place...)

One of the locos I have probably had 15 years - I never remember it derailing on my old 4'x8' layout with the 18" curves - the club is usually

40" curves! The lead truck's front axel goes off towards the right side of the track and you get the normal sound as it is pushed along. That loco is an Athearn SW1500 that was repowered with a Sagami can motor about 10 years ago. I installed a Digitrax decoder in it not to long ago, but it runs fine on my test track here.

The other loco I had problems with is a new Genesis unit - SD70M that derailed in the same manner - the middle axle stays on the rails, the lead axle goes right and the rear axle goes left on that lead truck.

Most folks run their stuff on the same track I was using with no problems - what can I do to get these locos to run right?

Thanks! Rick

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Rick
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"Rick" wrote in news:1wlwc.947$Qv1.228@lakeread03:

First and foremost, check wheel gauge. It might be that one or more axles in the truck (and i'm suspecting the lead axle) is out of gauge - and probably narrow.

If that's correct, check if the truck binds; yes, that sounds strange, but it might be the truck binds just a little on the gentle curve, whereas it might swivel smoothly on the tighter curves.

Good luck!!

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JB/NL

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