Hi all - I suspect this has been asked before but here goes.

Am currenlty refettling the track but without being absolutely perfect (and with things like insulating rail joiners and varying rail gaps at joints with temperature because it is in a garage it will never be perfect. 

I think I can get it good enough to make farish poole stock derailments a rarity. But 4 wheeled plastic wheeled short wheelbase goods wagons - no chance. They are featherlight and the slightest thing and they are off.

So what can you do. Would any of the following help significantly?

Metal wheels?
Weights (liquid gravity)?
Anything else.?

I also feel that poole coaches were underweight as they are much more prone to jumping off than older minitrix or lima stock?

Metal wheels. They reduce friction which will help.

Metal wheels will help as will weight as long as your loco has enough traction to pull it 

Quote from: PaulinSouthMidlands on April 09, 2016, 10:14:31 PM
Hi all - I suspect this has been asked before but here goes.

Am currenlty refettling the track but without being absolutely perfect (and with things like insulating rail joiners and varying rail gaps at joints with temperature because it is in a garage it will never be perfect. 

I think I can get it good enough to make farish poole stock derailments a rarity. But 4 wheeled plastic wheeled short wheelbase goods wagons - no chance. They are featherlight and the slightest thing and they are off.

So what can you do. Would any of the following help significantly?

Metal wheels?
Weights (liquid gravity)?
Anything else.?

I also feel that poole coaches were underweight as they are much more prone to jumping off than older minitrix or lima stock?

There's not a lot you can do wrong with a four wheeled wagon... The majority of derailments are due to either 1. badly laid track, 2. excessive speed, or 3. wheel issues.

As you say you are addressing 1. and assuming not 2. so concentrating on the wheels. The main things to look for are:
1. the wheels can freely rotate - they are properly seated in the axle bearings and not binding or rubbing on the wagon floor.
2. they are the right gauge - check the "back to back" measurement. If the plastic wheels you're referring to are the Peco moulded nylon ones, unfortunately they are marginly under gauge and can't be adjusted...
3. the wheels are clean -lumps of dirt on the wheels can lead to uneven running, and plastic wheels do tend to acquire a sort of rind over time. scrape it off with a small screwdriver or the back of a knife (not a sharp blade as you don't want to cut into the wheel)

Replacement metal wheels will help with all of the above and modern, finer, blackened wheels (Parkside Dundas or Farish) also improve appearance.

Adding weight to a properly maintained wagon running on well laid track should not be necessary. It will only result in a reduction of the locos haulage capacity...

I've heard it said that plastic wheels can contribute to making tracks dirtier (presumably by particulate matter rubbing off).

Thanks All.

Freight will mostly be hauled by a Minitrix 9F, Union Mills Drummond goods or Flieschman/Langley S15 so extra weight shouldn't cause any problems, but it looks like the first thing to do is get some farish blackened wheels and try that.

Sadly the track I've got is never going to be perfect but thats life I guess.

Before the finer blackened wheels came along, I always rated Peco wagons above Farish (no Dapol back then) as I thought the black plastic wheels looked heaps better.

Strangely enough, I have never had major derailment problems with my Peco wagons, and my track is far from perfect!

I do agree with comments about them picking up crud, however.

I do my own range of metal wheels which are fine scale and set to NMRA back to back.

They have been tested in a number of Peco wagons with no problems mentioned so far.

Just tried swapping the peco wheels for some farish (non blackened) wheels. The Farish wheels axle seems a little larger and they were hard to get in and didn't spin freely.

Put the plastic wheels back and put two socket set screwdriver heads in the open wagon - wow!

Wouldn't be much use with a weak loco though, but this is where minitrix and union mills come into their own.

Perhaps I'm a bit old fashioned but the model railway I spend most of my life on is 1:1 scale and I do rather prefer the solid good engineering in old minitrix and Union Mills over the fine detail in newer models. In the end the primary function of a model railway loco is to operate a model railway properly  and take a few knocks while looking reasonably like the 1:1 version. Modern engines seem to be the other way round!

What I am noticing from the fettling is that the stock can be quite tolerant of gaps at joins between rails but sudden changes of level (even a mm) at e.g. baseboard joins can cause big problems. Also any difference in height between the two rails will cause chaos.

N- Train - noted with thanks. Especially as I still have a good few old farish Cheesecutters . Which of your products do you recommend for swapping peco wagon wheels and old farish cheesecutters?

Having said that my track is far from perfect, differences in gauge, large gaps and particularly differences in rail height will indeed cause problems. 

I too had derailment problems with code 80 points, so, as the wagons were coal wagons, I bought some coal and filled them up. Sorted the derailment issues.

Wot, real coal? That would sort those wagons out!

I notice that Dapol hopper wagons come with simulated coal loads 

I have a couple of rakes of peco vans..I took the roofs off and glued in some liquid gravity to add a little weight...all my track is code 55 and i never get derailments from these wagons...the only problem I had was the Elsie couplers sometimes need a little bit of tacky wax to stop them uncoupling..as all my rakes are fixed this suits me fine !

As well as weight and cleanliness I'd also recommend checking the back to back spacing on the wheels, particularly if you have problems in pointwork.