The track is in and debugged!

Finally, my little Atlas RS1 Switcher goes through the entire spaghetti bowl with never a glitch! Even the slightest, unusual tiny little noise at a joint, makes me go in with a needle nose file and further file down the solder that may have gotten to the inside of the rail.

But, as soon as I attach a freight car....before too long the diesel is dragging it on its side. I guess, despite the little steel weights, it is still too light.

Gotta keep at it until ever car can negotiate every turn, every joint. Model Railroading is like Golf! Frustrating! Ah but the rewards are great!

Mike

First and foremost, congratulations on getting the engine through. That kind of careful attention to joiner detail pays big dividends.

Second -- just a thought -- try many different cars separately behind the engine.

You may find that its not a weight issue, but a wheels issue. Flange depth, tapered flange thickness, ( ?profile?) may be the issue separate and aside from car weight.

If you find cars that "track" through well, look carefully at the wheel brand / model, etc, and consider conforming all the wheelsets to the same type as the ones which track through.

Lots of suppliers claim "RP-25" (in HO) wheels. Even within stuff that uses / "conforms" to RP 25 standards there are significant variances in actual execution.

Look a lot at the car wheelsets.

I agree about trying different cars. The number one thing that causes derailments for me has always been wheelset gauge being too narrow or too wide. I'm in N, but the problem is the same in any scale. Wide wheelsets will cause nightmares at turnouts and on tight curves. Narrow wheelsets will usually only kill you on turnouts.

Do you have an NMRA wheel gauge? You can't live without one. Just making sure that the track, wheelsets, and flangeways (in the turnouts) are all in gauge makes it so I can't remember the last time I had a derailment (that wasn't caused by me clumsily smacking the benchwork, or leaning over onto the passing train :-( ). (and N Scale is mighty fussy)

And congrats on getting the mainline running!

--- Max

Jim McLaughl> First and foremost, congratulations on getting the engine through. That