Micro Trains Wheels Screws or Pins

That's not an acceptable solution for some of us because it limits the length of your trains.

 

+1. I model two eras, transition with cabooses (50's-60's) and modern with no caboose. On the modern I utilize an EOT device called a "FireFly Fred which is a self contained truck mounted flashing EOT device. The electrical pickups on the truck provide enough drag to cancel out the slinky. On my cabooses I use those with less than ideal rolling ability to cancel the slinky. No need to inhibit every car. And if, by chance, I happen to see a train with the slinky I don't worry about it. There are other more important things to worry about. It never ceases to amaze me that we fixate on the slinky effect on the rear of a train but we turn a blind eye to the ten foot coupling distance between every car with body mount couplers. The slinky is easy to resolve but that ten foot gap is not.

 

Easy enough, just add another locomotive. It's what the prototypes do.
Not every car needs a spring either.

 

Again, not an acceptable solution for everyone. You can only have specific cars on the end of then train or swap out the trucks. Even if you employee that solution, when performing switching maneuvers that car is not going to always be on the end and up pops the slinky action again.

The are more important things, to you. It never ceases to amaze me that people worry about a little extra space between cars and turn a blind eye to the end of the train bouncing back and forth. Seriously, though, different people have different priorities, and for me the slinky effect is much more of an aggravation. Besides that, even if I considered the spacing more if an issue, it certainly wouldn't be a reason to not fix the slinky issue.

Yes it is, just change the couplers.

Not always that easy. I'm already planning two and three loco consists, I'm also planning 50+ car trains with 2% grades. Will a three loco consist pull a 50 car train with added resistance up a 2% grade? I honestly don't know yet if it will even do it with out the added resistance, but it's definitely less likely with it. Furthermore, added resistance increases the likelihood of string lining, especially with long trains on a grade.

I covered this above but in short not doing all cars limits which ones you can have on the end.

 

Can you pull just as many cars with the drag spring as you can without (see my previous post about adding locos)? Again, it works just fine for some, but not for everyone.

 

Once more I agree with you. The slinky effect is easily and cheaply resolvable. We can not say that about the extended coupling distance with body mount couplers. But I'm done with this. It is his railroad and model railroad rule No. 1 applies. I recommend locking the thread.

 

No, but if you put one on each car they definitely add up. Isn't it ironic that we want our cars as easy rolling as possible only to then put extra drag on them?

I'm not looking for help, I have a solution, for me, and that is to replace the Micro-Trains couplers. The drag spring may actually be a good solution for TMC, which in all honesty I should have mentioned in my previous responses, but I was kind of stuck on the "surprised by the still common complaints" comment. The fact of the matter is for some of us replacing the couplers is a better solution; however, I've seen and been involved in several discussions where I or someone else has made that determination and explained why, but somebody still has to try to convince us of a "better" solution, so maybe I got a little defensive. Back to TMC, while he started off mentioning replacing the couplers and wasn't asking for other suggestions, he may not have even heard of the other solutions, so I'm glad you two brought up the drag spring. It may be helpful to TMC - I'd hate for him to replace a bunch of couplers only to latter find out he could of just added some springs - and also serves as a reminder to myself that that solution does work for many. I do actually usually include the drag spring option when someone asks about eliminating the slinky effect, but I think that because he first mentioned replacing the couplers and then transitioned into the slinky effect, it just kind of slipped my mind.

 

I think the misunderstanding that you only put on spring on rear axle of the last car...not every car...JMO

 

Some people only put them on the last car but some put one on every car:

As I stated before, for some people there are issues with both options.

 

Preach it brother!!!

 

I an happy with my Slinky Trains....



.

 

George I think you have the best idea!
You don't need to worry about coupler distance, coupler compatibility, stringlining your train, shorting out the rails (regardless if you're running DC or DCC and the best part, you have that nice little whistle that you can whistle for help in case you run into any issues!


This thread has been better than any comedy sitcom, past or present.
@TMC, I think the best thing that you can do for yourself right now is take everything mentioned on this thread with a grain of salt and just give things a try and see what works for you.

Oh, I would also suggest you loosen your tie or unbutton your shirt a bit and relax and don't get so caught up in the details,
otherwise you will never settle on anything and will be stuck in the planning stage. What is that they call that? Analysis Paralysis.

 

Micro-Trains should have just re-packaged or modified their existing Z scale couplers into functional variants (i.e. different shank lengths, underslung, etc), molded them in brown and made *that* the True-Scale coupler. The #1 reason why the TSC didn't catch on was because it was so proprietary in design - it couldn't mate with any other coupler, especially the existing industry-standard MTL knuckle coupler. When they came out, they piqued my interest for one hot minute, but learning that they couldn't mate with standard knuckle couplers was a dealbreaker.

 

I solve that by putting cars with McHenrys or Atlas couplers on the rear of my train. No more jerking back and forth from the rear car!

 

Actual freight trains have a ton of slack. anyone thats ridden long trains either on the engines or in the caboose know that its easy to get hurt just sitting in the seat. My ore train has Tru Scale couplers simply because they look better, couple closer and have little or no slack in them. None of the real ore cars have cushioning so the slack is restricted to free slack in the couplers or draft gear. My goal is not to eliminate slack action , only to reduce it to simulate the mass of a real train. All of my cabooses have restraining springs but its not enough to take all of the slack out of the train. Running an N scale train is like running a real train without train brakes, only engine brakes. I can however put a brake on the caboose !


Now, how do I simulate loaded tank cars sloshing back and forth at a standstill?

 

The slinky effect is not slack action. The slinky effect is oscillations caused by the spring in Micro-Trains couplers. Slack action is not sprung, even cars with cushioning have dampening to prevent oscillations.

 

How is it that back in the day when everyone ran MT trucks/couplers with the so-called pizza cutter flanges that no one complained of any slinky effect? Hmmmmmmmmmm, might there be a connection there?