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Derailing on points: Dim Newbie Question

My son (aged 9) is beginning to experiment with model railways. He has a Hornby Flying Scotsman set[1] plus various extra bits of track, mostly Hornby but some Peco Setrack.

We have a problem which affects about half our points: one or two of the bogies on the Scotsman's coaches derail every time if the points are set to the curve. This will happen in the case of one bogie at any speed, and in the case of the other at any speed above dead slow.

This happens on both Peco and Hornby points (Peco ST-240, Hornby

8073).

We also have a Hornby LNER 0-6-0 pannier tank which always derails on the Peco ST-245 double-curved point.

In all cases the inner wheel appears to drop inside the inner rail, rather than the outer wheel riding over the outer rail. It's almost as if the wheelbase is wrong for the gauge.

Everything is new or nearly so, it's clean and been carefully looked after. We are quite frustrated by this; I can see how it might be possible to modiy the curve of the moving bit of the points to make it work, but this may e irreversible so I'm not anxius to start faffing around unless it's the right thing to do.

What is the Received Wisdom regarding derailing problems and how best to fix them?

[1] Michael chose the Flying Scotsman because he was born on 27 April 1994, the same day Oxford Molecular Group floated. The chairman of Oxford Molecular announced both "births" together in the pub that night. His name? Tony Marchington. He made a damn site more out of his share options than we did, but all in a good cause ;-)

Guy ===

** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony.
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If this is the

What's the best way to do this without blunting bearings, breaking things, etc,

a) if it's possible to pop the wheels out? b) if it isn't?

Reply to
Richard

Guy. Clive is right. I recently had a problem with some Hornby MGR hoppers.Adjusting the wheels outwards slightly did the trick. In theory, you need a back-to-back gauge to do this correctly, but you can get away with doing it by comparing wheelsets from one vehicle to another (pick a non-hornby truck or something). Adrian

Reply to
Adrian

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote

I hope that you are measuring it wrong then as a 15mm Back to Back with Hornby profile wheels is pushing it on plain track let alone pointwork.

Reply to
Terry O'Brien

=>I have (sort of) the opposite problem. On new and rewheeled Hornby =>rolling stock with 14.5mm back-to-back (as I posted a few weeks ago), =>the inner check rail on Hornby R8074/5 curved points ...snip...

Just dump the Hornby turnouts and wheel sets, get NMRA or MOROP wheels, and Peco turnouts.

Hornby makes nice _bodies_, but their wheels and track are bloody awful.

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

Where can I get 13mm diameter NMRA coach wheels (45" in HO scale)? What about the Black 5?

Anybody (preferably in Canada) have 3 each of Peco ST244 and ST245 they would like to swap for 6 each of Hornby R8074 and R8075 (two R/H with dodgy electrical continuity)? Probably not.

BTW, is there some connection between Hornby and Peco? They seem to promote one another, in a limited sort of way.

Reply to
MartinS

Sound of penny dropping. Two problems: a bent rail on the point plus incorrect wheel spacing. Solve the rail problem and the wheel spoacing issue becomes apparent - adjust them all to exactly 14.5 (yes they were a tiny bit over) and the problem goes away.

Thanks all.

Guy ===

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