northern radius

[rustycoupler]

 Ihave a N&W J and it runs wonderful on my layout, i purchased a lt. mountain and it runs like crap, not for the pulling capacity but for the way it doesent make the curves. My question is if i bought another northern, not a j but regular northern would it make the turns? Considering that my j makes the turnes i was wondering if the standard northern uses the same drive block.

[simkon]

It probably would, but there are no guarantees. I have 4 locos all identical, 1 of them will run on a sharper radius than the other 3. It is possible that you got lucky with your N&W J class and most may not make that radius. What I am saying is say Bachmann makes 10,000 J class locos of those 1,000 will run on a sharper radius than the other 9,000. This is unusual, but for some reason this is how it has been for Bachmann locos.

[skipgear]

The Santa Fe Northern will handle 11" radius curves, but just barely. Soon as pull a reasonable length train, it will start nosing (lifting the front drivers of the rail) in the corners.

The problem with the Mountain is usually the pilot truck. There is very little clearance between the pilot wheels and the steam chests. The pivot hole in the pilot truck is offset slightly to one end. The loco will run on straight track with the pilot truck spun either direction but check to see if there is more clearance with the pilot truck spun 180 degrees.

Also adding weight in the nose of either loco will help. Stick lead or tungsten where ever you can find the space.

[rustycoupler]

 The question is on the lt. mountain is should i enlongate the hole on the pilot truck and trim down the steam chests?