I have a VO-1000 loco and for whatever reason every time it goes through a turnout it gets jammed up. I cant see what it is getting caught on. I have a sd-35 that goes through just fine. All of my turnouts are Atlas #6 and whatever the standard turnout is. Any ideas? Suggestions?
Is the Accumate coupler trip-pin possibly hitting the frog or other part of the turnout? Those danged droopy couplers! Can't even guess how many of those droopy coupler trip pins have derailed cars on turnouts. If it is... then use a trip-pin plier or... other plier (needle nosed preferably) to bend the tip up a tiny bit. Trip Pin Plier (from Micro-Mark website)
Have you checked your axles to see if the wheels are guaged properly? I've had to regauge the wheels on every locomotive I've gotten with the exception of the Kato Mikados and the new Bachmann Heavy Mountain. Wheels out of guage will get "stuck" in turnouts.
How does one check the gauge of a wheel? And if it is off how do you fix this? I'll run it around a few times and watch the coupler trip-pin as mentioned in the previous post and see what that nets me
Use one of these.... NMRA Gage for N scale. (from Micro-Mark website) See on the left edge of the picture is says "wheels" and has some notches to check the width of the wheel flanges. Although I've never tried this product... maybe others have... and can tell us whether it works okay and if it is worth the money... Wheel & Gear Puller (from Micro-Mark website)
You didn't mention what type of switch machines you were using....but I had a problem with several Atlas GP9's getting hung up on the plastic housings on the standard Atlas switch machines. The corner of the pilot was catching on the corner of the machine. I had to file the bottom of the pilots to solve the problem. I thought about filing the switch machines, but they look bad enough already without carving them up! And the bottom of the pilots doesn't show anyway...or if it does, you have other problems to worry about
You can check your trip pin height and wheel gauge easilly with the Micro-Trains 1055 Coupler Height Gauge an Trip Pin Gauge. Vince TopHobbyTrains
It seems to be the problem you are describing... I dont have any issues with the heavier engines like my sd-35 I'm kind of knew to a lot of this. what pilots are you speaking of?
I believe MRLdave is talking about GP9 pilots hanging too low. I have also had this GP9 issue on non-Atlas track.
That's right Flash. Soup......the pilot is the front section of the engine where the coupler is mounted. On my GP9's the offending area was at the very outside edge...under the step. The problem was usually most noticable when the engine was coming into the switch from a curved section of track . On the GP's there was quite a bit of material under the footboards that could be removed, but it didn't take much filing to fix the problem. I've had the coupler issues also, but this was something noone else had mentioned and worth checking. I could tell this was the problem by waiting for an engine to hang up, then gently pushing on it........you could see the pilot flex (but not the coupler) although you couldn't actually see where the hang up was occuring because it was on the bottom side .
I have a VO-1000 and I use Atlas turnouts exclusively. I have had zero issues. I would suggest that you need to look at the pin. Just remove the darn things and run your engine. Do the problems persist? If so, I would suggest returning the engine. If the problems go away, then either leave the pins off, or set the height correctly. There is nothing wrong with your switches. Concentrate on the engine and don't waste your time and effort on a virtually fool-proof item...they are simply a "distractor" to the problem. Problem solved in under 10 minutes.
My first suspect is the trip pins. I just clip them off, holding the coupler box together with my thumb. I'm never going to use magnetic uncoupling. My second suspect is wheel gauge. Do as described above. I use the screwdriver method to regauge. That is, put the medium width flat blade of a set of "jeweler's" screwdrivers between the frame and the wheel and either twist it a little, or lever a little, until the wheel pops into gauge. It take a bit of a touch. I've got the touch because I've been doing it for about 35 years. My third suspect is that the track isn't quite lined up, either horizontally or vertically. There might be a squiggle horizontally or a hump vertically, either into the switch or through the switch. Watch carefully, and see exactly where the wheel starts to derail or stall. If the switch is humped vertically, the points might be higher than the stock rails. The stock rails are the ones that run through the switch. If it stalling on the frogs rather than the points, I'm guessing the switch is humped. My fourth suspect is that the switch isn't level from side to side, so the engine rocks just a bit, but enough to derail or stall. I have no problems with these engines through C55 No. 5 and No. 7 switches.
Soup: I had the same problem with one of my 4 VO-1000s catching on my Atlas C80 turnouts. I thought it was the coupler pin, gauge of wheels, bent frame, and flashing on the truck/gearbox casing that somehow got past the Atlas inspectors. I finally noticed that the wiper did not show in the space through the truck frame on the truck that kept snagging my turnouts, but it WAS noticeable on all the trucks on all of my other VO-1000s. The truck frame is sort of like a shallow U-shape formed by the visible sides of the truck frame and the casing for the underside of the gearbox under the loco. On the offending truck, the truck frm hangs down low enough on one side that it catches on the turnout flanges and guardrails. There is a tiny plastic pin that passes through the wiper and is supposed to snap into the side truck frame to hold it up, but it has broken off, so the truck frame sags on that side and catches the turnouts. In the pic below, you can see the brass wipers in the two rear trucks but not the front truck of the 2nd loco. (And if you could look at the other side of the 2nd loco, you would see the wiper on the other side of that front truck shows just like the rear truck wipers do in this picture.) The front truck in the pic is the one that keeps snagging. I think the solution will be to replace the entire truck and gearbox that the tiny pin sticks out of (not the casing/truck frames)...but I haven't taken the time to order one yet.
