Hey everybody. I was running my beloved Rivarossi Big Boy when I noticed something in between the wheels, a traction tire. I just snipped it out, but then a few days later, the other one did the same thing, so I snipped again. It still runs great, the grooves don't affect performance one bit. I'm just a little worried about pulling power. I never run more then 20 cars and a caboose with it, should I be worried at all? My layout has no grades and is kind of small, so I don't run long trains.
If your 4-8-8-4 runs OK as is, don't worry about it, just enjoy it. If you still have the original motor in it: The traction tires prevent the wheels from spinning if the engine gets over-loaded. If you can not shut off power immediately, the motor gets too hot and the plastic boiler melts down over the motor. Bummer! See?
You mean the old cab motors? I have the more recent version, the motor's in the boiler. I'll keep that in mind though. I'll check to see how many I can pull before too much slippage. Thanks
One guy replaced the drivers, on the geared axle, (which has the traction tires), with regular drivers salvaged from another engine that melted. After installing a can motor, he wrapped the driver frames and wheels etc. in polyethylene padded to 1/16" all over for clearance, then filled the space between the motor frames and inside of the boiler with water soluble mucilage and Bird Shot, (the shot gun shell type), to add all the weight he could get. The motor can still spin the wheels, but pulls all the cars he has up a 2% grade. I guess that is about all we could ask of a plastic engine. He watches the drivers, and when they do slip, he shuts down power quickly to save the motor. Last I heard, he was to make a trial 'pull' run at a Club to see just how many cars it would pull before spinning the drivers now, but I don't know how it came out.
