Grinding off wheel flanges

[uax6]

Thanks for the tips so far. I have loosened the bogey retaining screw but it doesn’t seemed to have achieved much. There have been a few mentions of check rail and stock rail. Which rails are these? Thanks.

 

Stock rails are the rails that the wheel runs on. Check rails are the extra rails that are inside the stocks that help to keep the wheelset on the stocks. What I suggested previously is to put a sliver of plasticard on the inner face of the check rail on the stock rail (ie the face of the check rail on the side away from the frog (don't put anything in the frog!)), this will tighten the gap between the stock and the check, which will then cause the back of the wheel on that side to touch the check and pull the complete wheelset over to the right side of the frog.

 

Andy G

[Barry O]

Does the loco derail when turned around? That would identify if it is the track.

 

Grinding down the wheels will do nothing to help.

Check the wiring (which, from your Facebook services page) is fairly easy for you to do. Is the bogie free to move side to side and can the bogie pivot up and down?

 

If not then find the cause and fix it.

 

Tight wiring causes problems.

Bent drive shafts can cause problems.

Glue on a wheel can cause problems.

 

As I say grinding the flanges won't help..you need to spot the real problem and fix that.

 

Baz

Edited October 28, 2018 by Barry O

[The Johnster]

Also, if the trouble is related to a point, check the flangeways for debris and clean it out; I use poundshop kiddies paintbrushes for this as they have stiff thick nylon bristles that make them hopeless for painting with!  The flangeways are the gaps between the stock rails and the check rails/frog (correct term is crossing vee; no railwayman would understand frog as meaning anything other than an amphibian herpetc reptile, or slang for a French person) through which the wheel flanges run,  

 

As the flange runs across the gap between the stock rail and the crossing vee, which may be several mm if it is a large radius point, there is nothing to restrain it from moving sideways and either hitting the vee or splitting the point, hence the need for check rails to prevent it doing this.  They are as necessary, and for the same purpose, on a model as they are on a real railway.

[Il Grifone]

'Frog' is apparently an American term, but then we speak English over here!   I gather it comes from the term for part of a horse's hoof which has a similar appearance.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_(horse_anatomy)

 

The NMRA site has a complete explanation of the workings of the device (RP 12 & 13) ('guard rail' = 'check rail').

 

https://www.nmra.org/index-nmra-standards-and-recommended-practices

 

and/or try these:-

 

 

 

EDIT for non-functional links.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Il Grifone

[Throppers]

So having taken all the wheels off the loco I have found the back to back measurements to be a little close. Increasing the spacing to the proper distance has helped however there are still some points it doesn’t like, so I’m going to try the suggestion of widening the check rail with some plasticard. What thickness of plasticard would you recommend?

[Grovenor]

So having taken all the wheels off the loco I have found the back to back measurements to be a little close. Increasing the spacing to the proper distance has helped however there are still some points it doesn’t like, so I’m going to try the suggestion of widening the check rail with some plasticard. What thickness of plasticard would you recommend?

While you have the wheelsets out check them against the points as shown in the first of the above videos.

Rgds

[Il Grifone]

The back to back being tight shouldn't matter as long as it is larger than the distance over wing and check rails. This is not to say it shouldn't be set correctly of course. Since this is the only vehicle affected, I would leave the track alone, but a thin shim could be tried. Start with 10 thou. plastic or a piece of post card.

 

A thought! Does the centre axle of the bogie have sufficient side play to negoiate the curve?. Small radius pointwork tends to be sharper than the nominal radius as there is a short section of straight track before the point blades and the curved section then has to be of tighter radius to compensate.

Edited October 29, 2018 by Il Grifone

[Throppers]

Problem solved!  

 

After doing some fettling with the back to back spacing and reducing it to ~13.9mm, there is no derailment even at excessive speeds. Thanks all for the advice on this one. I'm very revealed that the solution has been a simple one. 

[kevinlms]

Problem solved!

 

After doing some fettling with the back to back spacing and reducing it to ~13.9mm, there is no derailment even at excessive speeds. Thanks all for the advice on this one. I'm very revealed that the solution has been a simple one.

Glad its sorted. The BtB is very important.

 

Could have been a worse predictive text solution.

[SRman]

Problem solved!

 

After doing some fettling with the back to back spacing and reducing it to ~13.9mm, there is no derailment even at excessive speeds. Thanks all for the advice on this one. I'm very revealed that the solution has been a simple one. 

In the real things, to get long wheelbase locomotives around tight curves, they would sometimes resort to gauge widening of the tracks. Our modelling equivalent solution is to narrow the back-to-back distances of the wheels instead. Neither solution is ideal, but if it works, that's all that really matters to us.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

After doing some fettling with the back to back spacing and reducing it to ~13.9mm, there is no derailment even at excessive speeds...

 Keep a note of what you have done on this mechanism. That's a very tight setting, and may lead the loco to fail when run on different points.

[Guest]

As an avid collector of old Triang locos I know how important back to back is on modern peco track. Never had a problem with flanges though but b2b always needs adjusting on purchase. I set mine to 14.1 -14.3mm

[Keith Wilbraham]

I have 4 x Bachmann class 47 and one 57 all of which are superb models but since I had the first one, derailing was a very common issue. If the track is absolutely perfect there isn’t a problem other than on tighter bends or multiple point travel in the fiddle yard etc but with every class 47 and the 57 they would occasionally derail always on a couple of certain points so I changed the points to brand new Peco 100s and the problem remained and you never knew when they would come off. I heard of the removing the centre flange tip and thought it was too drastic but one day I went to another layout and every loco I took was fine except for ALL the class 47 Bachmann locos which wouldn’t go over one particular point. It appeared fine but it was in the middle of a bend and they just wouldn’t go. My friend who’s layout it was said All Bachmann class 47s come off at that point even thought he’d changed it too. I took one of my 47s the InterCity Fire Fly and bit the bullet and ground off the centre flange. I did nothing else to it at all but prior to doing it,it wouldn’t go over the points. After grinding the flange off, I hesitantly ran it around the circuit. It went right over the point with no problem so I went to full speed in both directions and hey presto, the mod works perfectly. I’ve spent months trying to find the cure for the 47s and this was magical. I tried the class 57 Scott Tracy and it too was coming straight off every time. Ground the flange off and again it worked first time. Another advantage is that there is no concern over tight bends any more. I’m sorry I’ve gone on about this but it’s no simple thing to consider such a major modification but in my personal experience it has cured all of the derailing problems with every Class 47 and the 57 Bachmann locos. I tended to use them very occasionally as I never knew when they would derail. Now they never do and they run perfectly. Sorry it’s been so long winded guys.

Edited November 10, 2019 by Keith Wilbraham
Spelling

[MJI]

Shim the check rails, the gaps are too wide allowing a wheel to take the wrong route.

[friscopete]

I did it to a Lilliput 2-10-2 tank loco years ago so it would run on code 70 track.I just ran it  while filing away to a  RP25 contour .the pony wheels I removed one  wheel and put the axle into a Dremel and vice versa.I used an NMRA standards gauge to check it all out  and eyeballed it all .It certainly worked a treat  chugging through all that lovely Shinohara track .

[DCB]

11 hours ago, Keith Wilbraham said:

I have 4 x Bachmann class 47 and one 57

I took one of my 47s the InterCity Fire Fly and bit the bullet and ground off the centre flange. I did nothing else to it at all but prior to doing it,it wouldn’t go over the points. After grinding the flange off, I hesitantly ran it around the circuit. It went right over the point with no problem so I went to full speed in both directions and hey presto, the mod works perfectly. 

 Over the past 50 years I have spent hours trying to find why certain locos derail on certain points.

In this case I would suspect a lack of sideplay on the centre axle or maybe up and down movement as the real culprit.   But hey losing the flanges works so job done.   I find the use of RP25 flanges has increased the amount of derailments quite substantially.   Much of it due to the track being out of level, with dips or humps in either one of both rails. Peco points just love bending up in the middle if not very firmly pinned down. Back to back is also critical, I have a home made gauge, 14.2mm one end 14.5mm the other for code 100 , if the 14.2 fits between flanges and the 14.5 does not then it is a pass, if not it needs adjusting, too narrow and the wheelsets climb over check rails, too wide and the check rail does not stop the flange of the opposite wheel going the wrong side of the frog.

[DCB]

On 25/10/2018 at 23:11, adb968008 said:

If you do ultimately go down the filing flanges route, ive filed down flanges on old triang locos, which had really deep flanges using this mechanism...

 

Remove wheelset, remove one wheel off the axle.

Put the axle with 1 wheel into your drill chuck & tighten

Set the drill in a vice, turn it on and let it spin, checking its even rotation..

Apply a file to the flange to get an even flange.

Check periodically how much is removed, it can go down faster or slower than you think depending on drill speedand file pressure applied.

Remove the wheel, fit the other wheel & repeat.

 

I used a standard expo drill, no sparks just filings, if you press to hard it ceases to rotate, to lite.. expect it to take ages... 20 mins plus, but you get to be certain how much you take down.

Old fashioned but works, today you could replace the wheel easy enough.

 

I have done quite a few of these down the years and I find the insulated wheels turn on the bush when you try this and that ruins the insulated bush, the Mazak wheels also can turn on the axle ruining the wheel.  I would suggest finding a bolt or something to mount the wheel on so it can be tightened up against front and rear of the wheel rather than relying on the axle.   The sintered iron Triang wheels will file grooves in your file so maybe just bin them, the mazak ones turn beautifully but you end up with a non see through wheel. The ones with separate tyres can be turned nicely, I pop the tyres off and use a slave wheel centre to turn them.  It can be easier to find new tyres, I am pretty sure  Hornby 2000 era tyers fit the 1970s B12 / Albert Hall.   It is crucial to get the flange reasonably concentric as they will ride up and derail on the shallow bit

Edited November 10, 2019 by DavidCBroad