N scale DCC ready 4-6-0 derails

[ctmorg]

Ain't it great when things go right!

Received a replacement 4-6-0 Friday (Bachmann replaced one that I had damaged - great customer company). Started to check it out and it derailed at first left-hand turnout. Lead truck was tracking left when turnout was set straight and jumping the  Other turnouts shaky but no derail. Checked track and turnouts - all OK. Checked here and other forums (fori?) for advice. Got several good tips. Tried easy ones first. Adjusted screw on lead truck ( It appeared loose, so I tightened it slightly.) Still derailed on retest. Moved on to other screw adjustments - suggestion was that rear of engine sat too low and raised front end. There are three screws on the under-carriage. I tightened the rear one ( to raise the rear end) and loosened the center and front ones slightly ( to lower the front). Tightened the leading truck screw again slightly to dampen the wandering. Retest totally successful!! Running for one hour now without a derailment!! There were several other suggestions for curing these derailments, that hope I won't need.

Thanks to everyone who had contributed to previous posts on this subject - you saved my weekend.

[railtwister]

Hi ctmorg,

Glad you got it fixed. I think I recall reading somewhere that some of the 4-6-0's lead trucks were inadvertently installed upside-down at the factory, something that's easy to do in many cases, so that should become something you want to remember to always check whenever you have a derailing problem on any new loco.

Bill in FL

[skipgear]

Glad you got it working but some of the things you did should not have changed anything. The screws on the bottom are just for the cover plate over the gears. They should not adjust the attitude of the loco on track.

Screw being loose on the pilot truck is fine. It needs to be loose to the truck can float properly. More than likely you have one of the ones with the pilot truck mounted upside down. That was the main cause for the loco's to derail. You can see the fix and the explanation below.

Here is the tune up topic on the 4-6-0....

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,15711.0.html