To Spring or not to spring?

[hartleymartin]

What are your thoughts on sprung buffers and couplings in O scale?

 

I've been building up a number of wagons lately and I've noticed that with light wagons, sprung buffers mean that you can accidentally have them shooting off down a siding if you're not careful with them. I've found that heavy wagons tend to work well with sprung buffers as they have a little more inertia, but light wagons seem to have a mind of their own. I've seriously considered adding a piece of brass wire to rub on one axle of each wagon to act as a brake.

 

Yet another problem is if you have a locomotive which doesn't run too smoothly. The wagons bunch up, and sprung back-and-forth off each other. I've gone back to using solid buffers on a number of my wagons, although I still have all sprung buffers on my locomotives.

 

Other things have helped improve running: Flywheels are a definite essential for smooth running locomotives, as well as all-wheel pick-up and keeping the wheels clean. Extra weight tends to improve things, and ironically, LESS free-running wheelsets. I've gone back to either not lubricating the bearings or to using a small amount of a very thick grease. When continuous-running, the grease warms up a little and becomes a bit more fluid. This works well in my local climate (Sydney, Australia) but I imagine that this might work less well in cold climates.

 

Your thoughts, please.

[Simond]

The real thing used to bunch up and spring back if the guard didn't use his brakes a bit - and he got the full benefit of it too!

 

I've heard of deliberately having a few dragging brakes, or simply not lubricating wagon wheels - I guess your locos need a bit more grunt to shift them but that's generally not an issue. I've also heard of working brakes on wagons, left "on" but not pinned down, so the rattle & bounce like the real thing. Never tried it, must have a go!

 

Scale weight?

 

I try to weight plastic wagons to ensure that they are more or less compatible with the brass and white metal ones I have, and I take an "axle weight" approach. 50-100g seems reasonable. The Guild approach is to have a "weight per length" which they have obviously developed - the recommendation is one gram per mm of length, equivalent to an ounce per inch in old money. This puts a typical 4w wagon at 125g minimum, which is roughly twice what the assembled kit might weigh. According to the GOG site, an ABS white metal open is about 216g

 

Scaling these up, 125g is 10t 4c, and 216g is 17t 16c, both of which are in the range of real 4w wagon weights, so perhaps this is where you need to be? Certainly, all my stock has sprung buffers and couplings, and I have not experienced issues, certainly not such as you describe.

 

Lead shot can be araldited into the spaces under most plastic wagon floors. You shouldn't mix lead shot and PVA with brass, but you'll probably be ok to do so under a plastic wagon.

 

DCC with KA caps also aids slow, smooth & prototypical running.

 

HTH

Simon

[hartleymartin]

Perhaps I need to put some real brakes on the vans. Some brass wire rubbing on the backs of the wheels.

 

I just happened to have some cast unsprung buffers in my box of bits so some wagons will be running with them.

[Giles]

I very much like slow running on my layouts (End of The Line), and I use the excellent Lionheart wagons....... however, although on full size you can get wagons bouncing against their couplings, it is nowhere near as lively as we get on on the models. I therefore put a little blu-tac behind the sprung buffers to make them solid, and get a much more scale performance out of them.

 

at least one of my locos has cast white metal buffers, but as they were fettled and polished so they looked better than turned sprung buffers before they were weathered - nobody has ever even noticed.........

[Simond]

Perhaps I need to put some real brakes on the vans. Some brass wire rubbing on the backs of the wheels.

I just happened to have some cast unsprung buffers in my box of bits so some wagons will be running with them.

A pal has done the "rubbing wire" thing and added working tail lamps to the brake vans using LEDs for directionality (doesn't work on DCC, the front one comes on too!)

 

Best

Simon