My coffee table Z scale trains

I do not have one of them, and it seems like a waste of money to buy one to test this unit.

I suppose that it is possible I received a bad one, but as mentioned I dropped this one when removing it from the box it was shipped in, I did not drop it when removing it the first time but later when reading how to wire it, it might be I caused this issue, I only dropped it from 4", but it was dropped, I do know it does not act like members here suggest it should act, remove the locomotive and the light comes on, this does not happen, the light does not come on when the locomotive is removed, the light only comes on if one wire is removed from the track, I have not checked to see if it is on if both wires are removed from the track terminal.

I bought a locomotive track cleaner, I tested it and it runs/moves(it looks brand new), that is all I have done with it so far, the only thing on the literature written in English is that it should only be used/moved in the forward direction, it has abrasive wheels in the front, it came with a little brush to clean them abrasive wheels, right now my locomotives will crawl around the tracks in an almost boring speed, I do not know how fast one should run these track cleaner locomotives.

 

OK, I ran my circuit 1 for a while last night and the locomotive started hesitating/stopping when ran very slow, slow meaning 15/20/30 seconds?? to make a complete loop around the track, I put the gaugemaster track cleaner back in and ran it for a while and things improved, so I decided to try and see how slow I could make it go, I had it running so slow it took 1 minute and 58 seconds to get all the way around one time using no short cuts, it was easy to get it in the 1 minute 40 something range, as hard as I tried I could not get it so slow it took 2 minutes or more, it kept stalling/stopping in of all places flat level straight track.

Even though the light on this unit does not seem to work properly, it might still be working, but I feel nothing when I stick my finger on both tracks at the same time the train is moving around said track, my fingers are like leather.

I did run my other circuits slow also without many issues locomotive wise, but nothing that slow like that one locomotive with 3 very light cars, that #1 circuit has one very sharp/steep downhill turn and 19 degree crossing, and one steep uphill turn and uphill 90 degree crossing, I actually have very few crossing issues on this circuit not counting collisions.

I was going to alter that very sharp downhill turn to make it less sharp by making the upper almost level turn sharper, but it seems to work at reasonable speeds so I have been putting it off, here is a photo of that turn leading into the crossing, the entrance to the extended part has not been finished in this photo.

 

I put 2 F7 type diesel locomotives together and ran them last night with all my cars I had without an issue, I had smooth slow control all the way to a very slow crawl, the head lights never come on that I can tell as they are not moving fast enough, and I replaced the burnt out bulb last night as they showed up also along with the Southwest locomotive, if one of the locomotive wheels jumps the track, they will not pull all the cars up that long uphill grade I have so I have to find out which one derailed to fix it, it does not look derailed(happened twice), I think it happens on that first crossing I put in in the straight section, it is slightly bumpy at certain speeds, the slower it moving the less bumpy it looks.

I am happier as each day passes with this effort I made(larger coffee table and another circuit), as mentioned I was considering trying to change that downhill curve and make it straighter, it is just fine the way it is, I have no derailments in that area anymore since smoothing the transition from Atlas track to Marklin track, even the 3 axle steam locomotive goes across smoothly now but the sharp turns make using that locomotive on that circuit iffy, it gets stuck when moving slow the one turn is so sharp, pivoting truck type locomotives work better.

I need to find a source for cheap Z scale trees, I need a lot of trees.

 

Glad you got things smoothed out. I’ve always said nothing matters if trains don’t run smooth.
As for trees sone members make their own. I usually go with woodlan scene kits for N scale as trees come in all scales. Basically they have a bag with plastics trunks and branches. Add glue and spin foliage on it. The foliage is foam colored. I used different shades and usually comes out nice.

 

I am curious, what would make a locomotive get slower and slower until it actually stops moving without touching the speed controller, and I am talking about it starting out at a medium speed, it even happens with 2 locomotives running in tandem, but I never let it come to a stop as a tandem, once it slows down to a point I get it moving again by turning up the speed controller then backing it off to the desired speed, once the locomotives warm up it is not as bad, they run smoothly but get slower and slower, it started with the Southwestern Pacific F7 locomotive, its the same with two of them.

I am sorry I do not have a photo of them, I am supposed to receive another locomotive/caboose today, I will try it with both locomotives and see if it only happens with the black one that it did it alone, I do like running them in tandem at slow speeds, I do not have many issues, if I go to fast even in tandem they both start spinning out on the uphill grade, slower is the way to go, one has time to think and react before a collision when moving slow.

After the fact, the missing locomotive and first car survived, does anyone else have issues with these yellow boxcars, mine appears to be so light it comes off the rails without any known reason, well except in collisions, that is an obvious reason.



They were both moving so slow this is where they both came to a stop, neither derailed, I just backed off the one on the right and the other continued on.



All my collisions happen when something else went wrong and I am distracted.

 

Can't help on derailing train wrecks; Gomez is my go-to guy on train wrecks:

"Why else would a grown man play with trains?" cracks me up every time.

on pulling cars off the rails, Marklin had an army of engineers precisely weighing and constructing their Z train cars since 1972. each car has a perfectly designed weight, (many now just rusty metal from 52 years of oxidation) hidden in the cars to deliver good tracking. they work, mostly. So if Marklin is never wrong, and the car derails......then the train has too many cars, or they are being pulled off by too narrow radii curves, or the grade is too steep, or the track is just not perfect to Marklin track-laying standards et ctera, et cetera, et cetera.

When I graduated to MTL cars, they had a metal chassis and that was about it. So you tried to pull the MTL 12 days of christmas set (12 boxcars, caboose and a dummy b unit) around a 145mm curve, and most cars tried to take a shortcut across the cornfield instead of staying on-track. Easy-peasy fix, a couple of nuts (metal, not edible) glued with contact cement directly over the bolsters inside on the metal chassis, snap the shell back on and bob's your uncle.

i digress from marklin to discuss mtl, 'cause mtl's car body shells just snap on to the metal chassis. Marklin, after years of experience, seems to continue to heat-tack their shells to the plastic chassis, as well as making that the coupler pocket. so you scrape off the heat tack, remove the shell, add more weight and then heat tack or glue the chassis to the shell again. but if you got it wrong, it's not as easy like mtl just snapping off the shell, pulling the contact cement and nut off the chassis and fixing a smaller lighter nut to the chassis floor.

last obs, adding weight to cars is a slippery slope. leads to more and larger locomotives needed for pulling power, which leads to the need for larger radii curves. If you can downsize your consists to just the number of cars that won't cause derailment, tis the cheapest solution.

 

I have always thought of the Adams Family train wrecks when I have a collision, I just don't have the smoke.

I did not add much weight, a very small nut over the front axle in 2 cars and it quit the worst of the derails, now it is about speed mostly, the faster I go the fewer the issues, but at one certain speed(not a crawl) the front of that first passenger car wants to enter the other circuits track on the 19 degree crossing, I am pretty sure it is because of dragging the cars up and around a turn left turn to go parallel with that track, the cars in back of the first car pull that car sideways, my other crossings do not have any issues, the 90 degree crossing also has a left turn a couple inches after the crossing, but the grade is so steep I can only pull 4 small light cars up that grade, 5 small cars and it will not make it, but that yellow boxcar is annoying, one axle comes off the rails on a curved turnout entrance to the steep section and the locomotive stops just before the firsts turn, I figured out if I slowly back up the axle goes back onto the rails by itself half the time and I continue on up the hill/grade without anymore issues.

I did have a bad issue last night, I got distracted and forgot the power on the speed controller was still on and I walked away after removing the first locomotive(tandem locomotives) to check it to see if it needed cleaning as it was acting up, both locomotives came to a slow stop all by themselves, anyway when I got back I noticed the power was still on and the locomotive was hot, one wheel was really hot, so hot it melted the plastic in the center of the hub of the wheel, the gears/wheel would not turn anymore, trying to fix it the wheel came off the axle, so now I need a new truck for the front of that locomotive, I put another truck on it and it appeared to run fine but that truck is for the other locomotive, it was a "Southern Pacific" F7 locomotive, I forgot to down load the photo of the box with the part number, I do not want to buy the wrong truck for it.

I also pulled a steam locomotive apart to clean/oil the gears as it would not run smooth and I could not oil the gears as they are hidden behind a plate, I regret pulling it apart now as I cannot seem to get it back together, last night was not one of my best nights.

 

Maybe install a go pro on your layout so we can all watch the train wrecks, start distributing the vids on youtube and watch the you tube "paid by views" money roll in.

Seriously though, you need to have Frank Daniels, owner of ZScalehobo on your speed dial. More than just an authorized Marklin dealer who can order parts from the mother ship; he is truly a valuable asset to this hobby. He participates on all forums, has his own facebook page and answers questions on the 5 or so other z scale facebook sites....he will help you immeasureably. Knows those parts you have flambayed and their replacement numbers you need, by heart. You call him and he will get your motor running and heading down the highway. Born to be Zwild. Good Hunting!

 

Your not trying hard enough, lol!!

 

I really is not on my top 100 things I want to do anymore, I spent hours but finally got it back together and running smoothly, but it will not run smoothly on Atlas flex track, it runs great on Marklin track, I tested it for a few hours on my small circle test track and it ran flawlessly, mine also has 4 drive axles and two other axles that appear to also supply power to the motor, all drive wheels are connected together and the little gears between them kept popping out when I was trying to rotate the next wheel and get the copper power supply arms in behind the wheels, but it is done/cleaned and oiled.

 

Last night was a good night, I received 2 Marklin 8800(Z Scale: BR 89 (DB) Steam Locomotive - No Box) steam locomotives with the can type motors, they are great for my circuit two track, they are smooth and make it across the 19 degree crossing without any issue at all, my only issue is the wheels start spinning on the long uphill grade, I tried my other 8800 locomotive with a 5 pole motor and it did not like it with the other two with can motors, I have a switcher with a can motor that looks like a caboose, I put it behind the caboose and it goes right up the grade now without any issue, I have a plan and will let everyone know how it works out good or bad, new members can learn from my mistakes.

Otherwise, I had no other issues last night, everything went slow and smooth(all 3 circuits).

 

I have another question, I use my locomotives in tandem with other locomotives, most the time only 2 locomotives, I have locomotives 8878 and 8874 as I recall the numbers, I have run them together a few times testing hills/grades, one day when I was using them on their own circuits I had issues and had to clean them both, one still works the same as before, but the other one is totally different now, one of the things it did was reverse direction, the two locomotives cannot be used in tandem anymore because they run different directions now, if I put them on the same track they will run into each other or will move away from each other until they run into each other halfway around the loop, what did I do to this locomotive?

Also I mentioned before(earlier in this thread) that I needed to turn the speed controller to around a 100 before either would move, now one starts moving with any movement of the speed controller, I believe the one that reversed is also the one that starts out differently now.

This all happened after I cleaned and oiled both of them(truck gears and drive shaft gear on the motor), they still work fine except I switched one with the other so they would both go the direction I pointed the speed controller when on the track closest too me, but I want to run them in tandem and I cannot do that now, what did I do and can I undo it?

I did have this happen before with the 8800 steam locomotive, I took the top of the motor off to clean everything(I thought I could get the drive gear out that way), well I put it back on 180 degrees out and it went the wrong way, that was an easy fix, I removed the top and put it back on 180 degrees out and the locomotive worked the same as the other one and I could run them in tandem again, but I did nothing to the motor on either of them locomotives(8878/8874) to have one reverse, does anyone have a clue on what I did?

 

You reassembled the trucks backwards on the one that is running in the opposite direction. Push the pin out and flip the trucks around move the Front truck to the back and back truck to the front the.

 

Are you kidding me, can it really be that simple?

Are they really different that the wheels would turn a different way?

I will try this, but I am skeptical, but it did reverse direction and now will not work in tandem with the other locomotive like it did before.

There are front and rear trucks.......................................................

 

Yep, that's correct. There are front and rear trucks.

 

Take a look at the power pickup tabs on the trucks in this picture
In yellow the contact tab at the coupler end is coming from the left side wheels,
In Green the contact tab at the coupler end is coming from the right side wheels.
By flipping them around Backwards you are reversing which end is drawing power from which rail
Green is the front truck. Yellow is the rear truck.

 

Thankyou very much tjdreams, all is good, I forgot to mention I did this and it fixed the issue, I never gave it a thought, normally I would only take one truck off at a time, but when they got really dirty I removed both for a good cleaning including the motor gears themselves, by the time I got back inside from the garage I forgot which way was forward, this is why forums are great, new people can get answers.

Now I need a truck for another locomotive, I need to figure out which one or maybe I should just get both and have one extra.

I guess I got lucky on that other locomotive, I pulled off a truck from another locomotive to test the locomotive that had a melted truck axle/wheel, I grabbed the correct one, if I had not I likely would have thought the locomotive was toast.

 

I ran all three circuits last night, circuit one has the sharp downhill turn on the left in the photos I posted that normally I only ran with 4 light cars, well yesterday I added 3 more cars including a caboose, it is very long now, I ran it with the two German locomotives(8878/8874) and everything worked out fine, I thought with sharp uphill and downhill turns cars would be pulled off the tracks but that is not an issue at all, the biggest issue is that the train is so long now it takes time to get thru the crossings which can cause more collisions, more input is involved when operating all three trains at the same time, two circuits have two locomotives(tandem locomotives), one has three, two 8800 steam locomotives and one diesel type switcher, all three have can motors(brushless?), they play together nicely, I bought two more 8800 locomotives with can motors, I am hoping three of them in a row will pull the 6 or 7 cars up the long grade/hill without spinning out, the switcher was pushing from the rear and it worked fine that way, I am hoping I can keep the locomotives together, in my world it would look weird if they were spread out, I do not recall ever seeing locomotives spread out in real life.

 

OK, I have searched and looked for Trucks(front and rear) for my "8861 Black Widow F7 locomotive", I searched z.scale.hobo and only found two versions, this one that does not distinguish between front and back with part numbers 88628/88629 E8/E9 but mine is E7, the other type is for GP38-2 locomotives with silver or gray frames which I do not think will work for me, finding things with a computer is sometimes frustrating for me, most my searches end with the complete locomotive itself and not parts(trucks).

I could use help, or something that shows the locomotive with all parts numbers, I inquired about what I need at the message center? at z.scale.hobo but have not received a response yet, I could not find the coupler springs and they directed to me to where they were, there was no photo of a spring so I passed it right by, what I need is likely there, but I do not understand the order they list their parts.