muir Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Hi there, I've got an ongoing issue with my bristol castle as it has a rather severe traction problem. A more recent purchase, the castle had obviously been sitting for quite some time as the axles had frozen in the chassis. It took a fair amount of lubricant(s) oiling, graphite etc, to free them up - now it all works a treat, but it's got excessive traction problems. By this, it slips with the slightest provaocation with 3 superdetails, all the other locos romp away with the load, including the doughty N2. I've got this strange idea that the wheels have become "ingrained" with lubricant or something. The Castle's been weathered, neo magnet etc, I've cleaned the rims after painting, and scrubbed tracks and so forth, but still this wheelspin. It's solely the castle. The layout is flat, using standard 3 rail curves, in the usual round three walls terminus to fiddle yard arrangement, no inclines. Does anyone have any ideas? Cheers Muir Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack P Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 You sure it's not actually a bulleid pacific in disguise? That would explain it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stewartingram Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Get some video head cleaner from Maplins and spray that on the wheeltreads. Don't use WD40! Stewart Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 Drag from the unpowered axles? Take the bogie and tender off, and just try what it will pull while on the driven wheels alone. Give bogie and tender a push while separate from the loco to see if they are 'no roll' items. Also the pick up skid. Is that too heavily sprung or stuck and lifting the loco, taking weight of the coupled wheels. Don't be worrying about 'ingrained' lubricant on the wheel treads. You can actually oil tinplated steel rail OO track and it doesn't much reduce traction; some folk used to do that in the long ago as a way of getting caked dirt off after some running. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
muir Posted October 12, 2012 Author Share Posted October 12, 2012 Drag from the unpowered axles? Take the bogie and tender off, and just try what it will pull while on the driven wheels alone. Give bogie and tender a push while separate from the loco to see if they are 'no roll' items. Also the pick up skid. Is that too heavily sprung or stuck and lifting the loco, taking weight of the coupled wheels. Don't be worrying about 'ingrained' lubricant on the wheel treads. You can actually oil tinplated steel rail OO track and it doesn't much reduce traction; some folk used to do that in the long ago as a way of getting caked dirt off after some running. you may be onto something there... the dublo castles have third rail plungers in the tender and I'm thinking if there is considerable plunger spring pressure, it may just be adding too much friction. I seem to recall I had a three rail 8f with traction issues as well... it's not like they're short in the weight department. I'm afraid I have no idea what maplins are (I'm in New Zealand) but the vid head cleaner is obtainable so I'll take a stab at that. we'll see how we go... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold TheSignalEngineer Posted October 12, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted October 12, 2012 Is the 'Castle' Ring Field or the old motor? When I resurrected my Ring Field one a couple of years ago I found a bag of nails in the smokebox that I had obviously added at some time. (It had last been regularly run c1981). I think it was something to do with wheelslip problems I had on longer trains at the time when I had a big 'roundy' Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted October 14, 2012 Share Posted October 14, 2012 That's my recollection of a boyhood friend's Dublo set up. He had a very impressive layout, thanks to being the 'accident' ten years younger than the youngest of his preceeding three brothers, and they added to their three rail with a lot more track and stock for a really impressive layout. But those nice heavy locos struggled to move much in the way of trains. Taking the bogies and trucks off, (because they derailed regularly anyway) helped somewhat, similarly taking off the tenders where possible. The A4 as an 0-6-0 was then up the job, I recall that; although not with H-D coaches, but using my Triang coaches. There's a lot of nostalgia for this system, and some of the models were nice in their day (least said about the 'Deltic' and N2 the better) but as a running system for children it did not perform as well as my Triang set. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
muir Posted October 15, 2012 Author Share Posted October 15, 2012 Is the 'Castle' Ring Field or the old motor? When I resurrected my Ring Field one a couple of years ago I found a bag of nails in the smokebox that I had obviously added at some time. (It had last been regularly run c1981). I think it was something to do with wheelslip problems I had on longer trains at the time when I had a big 'roundy' Well, interesting. I plopped the body off and filled in up with whatever I had lying round (all those old dead dublo magnets) and, lo and behold, instant traction improvement. The completely obvious and usual treatment of adding weight of course, but totally unexpected in a dublo loco... It's the earlier non-ringfield variety, I find the slow speed running quite nice in those... strangely enough for a dublo fan, I always run at a good, slow, realistic speed. I sell everything that won't run at a realistic pace. Can't help but feel that when they engineered something as well as the castle or the bulleid pacific, it obviously wasn't entirely meant for playing with on an oval. My 3 rail period gaiety tank has the original 5 pole armature and 30:1 gearbox. I still find the sound that iron wheels with tinplate bodies on tinplate track carries a good deal of realism in it's own way, and it suits where I want to be with my modelling.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.