Railroad Class 31 R3067 de-railing

[Twintop]

 

I purchased the Class  31 in blue R3067 at a bargain price of £42.99 in a recent Hornby dale.

 

As it was for Xmas I have only just test run it.

 

It looked fine after running in pulling 4 then 5 Tri-ang blue/grey MK1s on a semi fast service around one of my circuits, negotiating several sets of points with ease many times.including a LH P** curved point. .

 

However, I then switched it onto another circuit with a RH curved P*** point and it just leaps off the track going on the curved outlet.

 

I have not looked into this in any detail yet as it was towards the end of a freezing period in the loft = but has anyone else suffered similar issues with the loco. It does seem very light - could it use some added weight ?.

 

Another point - there is one review on this site that sayds it is all wheel pick-up. I have not tested this either, but as two wheels have traction tyres I cant see that it could pick up from those ? t  

[walkingthedog]

Do you mean Peco. You can say Peco and Bachmann or even Dapol. Do the bogies swivel freely both ways?

[Twintop]

I have had a long session in the loft tonight trying to sort out the Class 31/Peco curved point combination.

 

The bogies do pivot freely but I oiled the motor bogie pivot anyway - the body is easy to release from the chassis.

 

A Bachman Class 25 has no trouble whatsoever, nor a Hornby J94 or a Hornby Class 101. However my point installation is not great although I am certain I tested it extensively before ballasting. 

 

I have got a part solution. I have canted the point and now the Class 31 will go at speed over the point without de-railing - BUT only when the - and this is odd - the lighter non powered bogie is leading. Reverse the engine so the powered bogie leads and it de-rails all the time.

 

My conclusion is that my point installation is not great, but that the engine is too light. The solution - it will be on the layout so the non-powered bogie leads into this facing point !!!  I may try dome weight also.

 

Anyway it was  blue diesel and blue/grey Triang Mk1 s on services tonight - the Bachman class 25 D7667 in blue taking a local 4 coaches ( Full brake, 2 composites and a brake 2nd iand the Class 31 on a semi fast 2 brake 2nds and 2 composites plus a  buffet.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[walkingthedog]

I'm surprised canting the points helped they should be absolutely flat to work correctly. Are there any pipes etc. on the buffer beam that could be fouling the couplings?

[Rog RJ]

You need to run the loco slowly and see exactly what's causing it to derail.  It could be the back to back (b2b) of the wheels that is to small or too big causing a wheel to climb up the frog or something could be catching on line side equipment or it may need just a touch more weight over the bogie.  The back to back should be approximately 14.5mm, best checked with a vernier or a gauge available from a good model shop or online supplier.

[96RAF]

You dont say if you have point motors fitted but I had a Class 56 which fouled on a Hornby surface mounted point motor when mounted on the inside of the point (from memory) and I had to take a file to the motor casing to clear it..

[Twintop]

 Thanks for the suggestions. 

 

The point motor is underneath and there are no obstacles. I have tried running it slowly and whilst I can see where it jumps the tracks - big style not just a wheelset - I am no wiser.

 

The loco ran faultlessly for maybe 20 minutes over a double slip, long crossing. short crossing and a small radius crossover so I can obly conclude that its a combination of the point not laid as well as it should be and the loco being very light. If the BTB was out it would surely be de-railing on other points.

 

At the moment, as it runs fine non-powered bogie first then it can stay like that for now.  

 

ARGS are back selling then at £44 unc delivery by the way. 

. 

 

[Twintop]

No further on with this, but I have tested the pick ups and it is an all wheel pick-up loco, which is great, although as two wheels have traction tyres and the centre pair on the motor bogie have so much lateral float that they "lose" the pick ups, it is not realy a true 12 wheel pick up, but certainly fine.

 

When testing it I did find a coupling hook lodged in the bogie so I dashed into the loft expecting that to have been the problem but no - it still derails. I have not tried any more weight yet, but content that its runs fine one way and has great performance over the rest of the layout. It must mainly be that the point is not laid well enough, but a huge job to extract and lay again as I have loose ballast and that makes it a long job.

 

I have also taken the body off to see if I could use the chassis for a Tr-iang class 31 body. I suspect it would be possible and the dimensions are about the same, but the Tr-ang body has a separate roof and is partly flooed, whereas the Hornby body has a roof but no floor, so it would need a lot of surgery on the Tr-ang body to make it fit with no guarantee once butchered it would actually be OK.

 

 

 

v 

 

However as another PECO point has fallen apart - the point blades have come out of the tie bar and the spring has fone AWOL, I have had to extract that. I have a spare that I can fit for now, but never easy sltting in a point with lots of looses ballast about.   

[walkingthedog]

Sorry your still having the same problem Twintop.

 

I'm puzzled as to why people have points falling to bits. What do you do to them?  

I did have a double slip that fell to bits once but it might have been because I trod on it. Expensive mistake. 

[The son of Triangman]

Peco points and Hornby locos didn't sit well together in the past. Derailment was common place, the Hornby loco flanges not liking Peco flangeways in their points, application of a small needle file to the point flangeways often cured this problem.

Run a spirit level over the points they are best laid flat using a spirit level to check the level.

Also check the back to back wheel measurement of the loco as a wheelset might be incorrectly spaced.

Another thing is coupling hooks being too low and fouling the frog or check rails on the offending points.

[Twintop]

Thanks for the advice. I am sure it must be the point alignment as its certainly not level - in fact I put it on a cant deliberately and that helped !. 

 

I think my next step is to disconnect the controller and rewire it with long feed wires so I can get the controller close to the point and then control the loco repeatedly through the point from where I can observe it closely. At the moment I set it to run round - and get one shot at looking at it. I need to see exactly where the problem is. I must also invest in a BTB guage as well.

 

In the meantime,  the PECO point that failed was on the station throat on the down main line so that need changing as a priority - currently only the down relief can be used via platform 7 - platform 6 is closed ! Its just like the real thing.

 

Re the point failing - the blades are only an interference fit into the tie bar and so I guess repeated throwing of the blades via a PECO point motor which is quite agressive must over time take its toll. Plus the point may ne 20 years old and the plastic seems to be getting brittle on a few points . I even bought an as new s/h double slip last year and that must have been old - looked brand new - as the plastichas just shattered in a couple of places. I should have known better as I recognised the d slip as being the older version, but it looked perfect so bought it. I would have been better buying new for such a complicated bit of kit.  

 

SoT when you speak about taking a file to the frogs - is it the depth that needs increasing or the width ?