Re-Railers????

[rbryce1]

I am just starting to put together a medium size layout, not huge, but has a number of turns and an overpass.  I installed a re-railer at each point where the train would come out of a bend.  Why is it that not a single one of the darn Bachmann re-railers will put a car, engine or tender back on the track?  I thought that was what they were suppose to do!  My train can do 2 laps going over 7 re-railers per lap and not fix the problem once.  This is fairly consistant (not the de-railing, but when it does happen, the re-railing).

I could see it if it happened at one re-railer every time and the others worked, but this happens at all of them pretty much all the time.  Half of the time the train is coming out of a turn, and the other half just before entering a turn.  Doesn't matter, same results.  Not running fast either, in fact, pretty darn slow.

These were not cheap, and I feel like I kind of got shafted by Bachmann.

[Jerrys HO]

rb,

You did not get shafted. You may want to check your wheels to see if they are gauged correctly or not enough weight to your rolling stock. I have several re-railer's on my layout and all work properly when needed.
Derailment's can and will occur, but you sound like your's are frequent. Check your track also to make sure it is properly secured to your table unless you are using it on the floor which is not a great idea.

Jerry

[rbryce1]

They don't happen that often, but when they do, they never correct themselves.  I am using new Bachmann Nickel Silver track, it is assembled correctly, 3 Bachmann diesel engines and one Rivarossi steam 4-6-4 engine.  One loop has an incline and the other track is flat.  Same problems on both tracks.

[Jerrys HO]

Another problem may be speed of the train going over the railer's. Too fast it may just be gliding over the railer.
I have had issues with coupler length's not letting car's negotiate the tighter radius to rail joiners not properly attached.   
Re- railer's are great for adding loco's or rolling stock, but also can help with occasional derail. I would first look at your track work (no matter how good it looks) and check all joiner's are connected to the rail not over or under it. Check your plastic spikes made on the roadbed to make sure rail is still in spike's. You did not mention if you have turnout's.
An NMRA gauge will help you make sure if everything is in spec.

Jerry

[rbryce1]

I think we are going off on a tangent.  I am not questioning "why" the car de-railed.  The trains are always going slow over the re-railers.  All the track is new Bachmann EZ track with attached roadbed.  No spikes.  All joints are new and correct.  The re-railers are just not putting the cars or engines back on the track, and I can't figure out why.

[Jerrys HO]

Well we are not going off on anything. I was in your shoes not to long ago and experienced  some of the same problems.
Your track may be new but installation of them is critical. Yes your track has spikes,although they are plastic and molded into the ties that is what holds your rails on. If some should be broken then your rails could be out of gauge.
Shoot a video of your train as it goes over the re-railer ( if possible) and watch it back in slo-motion. Another member posted this info and it really works to solve hard to see problems. Post here and other's may help too.

Just trying to help you get thru this as other's have helped me.

Jerry

[jward]

you asked about a problem with the rerailers. jerry was not going off on a tangent, you were simply asking the wrong question. the question you should be asking is why are my trains derailing in the first place, reraileres at best cure the symptom but not the problem.

some questions:

do your trains derail at the same spot every time or are the derailemnts at random locations?  is there more than one spot where they consistently come off the track?

are the derailments affecting certain cars or locomotives more than others? is so, which ones? do the trucks swivel freely? are the coupler pins low enough to snag something between the rails?

are there track switches in the area immediately before the derailments? is the track level from side to side in this area, or is there a twist in the track?

the answers to all of these questions can point you toward solving the problem once and for all. put another way, prpoperly laid track running properly adjusted trains does not need rerailers.

[rbryce1]

Come on guys, give me a break here.  This has nothing to do with derailing.  Only about why it is not re-railing.   I just took a gondola, manually derailed it ever so slightly, very slowly pushed it over the re-railer and the single wheel of the forward truck entered the re-railer, slowly walked right up onto the platform, rolled right across the platform and dropped right off the other side.  It was suppose to go back onto the track and it doesn't.

I have 2 film clips of this but I don't know how to post them to this site.

[Desertdweller]

Rerailing would not be an issue if the car did not derail in the first place.

From what you describe, I would suspect there is either a problem with gauge (either the car or the track), or with a bind in the truck pivot.

Gauge problems in the track are not unknown.  If you have a track gauge, like that on a MT coupler check gauge , you can run the gauge around the curve and touch the spike heads with superglue to hold it in the correct gauge.  You can also use the same tool to check wheel gauge (spacing on axle).

I have one EZ Track rerailer where the curve in the track on the rerailing section itself was too tight.  I don't know of a fix for that.

Swing the truck on its pivot by hand and feel for places where the coupler or other parts may be catching on the car frame.

There isn't much that can go wrong with a rerailer, aside from tight gauge.  This is why your problem almost has to be due to something else.  The first thing to do is determine if the problem happens only to the same car, and if it is only with the same end of that car.

From what you describe, it sound like the car is entering the rerailer in a derailed condition.  A car can derail and be dragged quite some distance, even with cars on both ends.  Try stopping your train at intervals before the derailer and try to determine where the derailment is actually happening.  Something will be wrong with the track at that location. Check you track joints, too, to be sure none of your rail joiners have been overidden.

I have a fairly large N-scale railroad, built with EZ-track 11 3/4" curves and EZ-Track switches.  My railroad is passenger-oriented, with full scale length passenger cars and truck-mounted couplers.  So I have to pay special attention to thse things, and sometimes have to do a bit of tweaking to the cars to make them perform well.  I have a switch that a loco (a Kato PA-1) would always derail on, but only in one direction.
After cussing the switch, I found the loco was actually derailing on the curve about three feet before getting to the curve.  When I corrected the gauge in the track, the derailments stopped.

Les

[rbryce1]

I appologize if I sound like I am getting frustrated, but I am.

Desertdweller:  "Rerailing would not be an issue if the car did not derail in the first place." ..... How many times do I need to say that right now I don't care why it is de-railing, only why it is not RE-RAILING.  De-railings will happen to the best of setups occasionally.

Desertdweller:  "From what you describe, it sound like the car is entering the rerailer in a derailed condition." ......  Of course it is.  If it was not de-railed, I wouldn't need to re-rail it!

If my problem was that the turn signals in my car were not turning off after I made the turn, the solution would not be to look at why I turned them on in the first place.  Why they may be de-railing is a seperate issue.  I only want to know right now why the re-railer is not re-railing.  

Again, there is nothing on the track.  No rubber, no plastic, no spikes, no dirt and no bird droppings.  There is no gauge problems unless Bachmann made all 9 of them wrong.  They are not in turns.  These are not atlas flex tracks on cork roadbed, they are new pre-formed Bachmann re-railers, already made, not modofied, not worn out.  I had nothing to do with their design, concept or construction.  I bought them, installed them and would now just like to use them.  It does this with box cars, tank cars, gondolas, flat cars and even the crane. I did about a half hour's worth of testing.  I have found that if the lead wheel of the truck is off the track, it will NOT re-rail.  If it is the rear wheel of the truck, sometimes it does re-rail, bit not always.  Does that shed any light on things.  The trucks are not binding and it doesn't matter if the car has a body mounted or truck mounted coupler. It will not re-rail any of them if the front wheel on the truck is off the track. Again, I have a video, but do not know how to load it on this forum.  Right now they are about as usefull as an automobile crossing ramp.  I'm ready to just rip every one of them out and just manually re-rail the occasional derailment, for what ever reason something may derail.  

[Jerrys HO]

rb,

I can speak for most if not all that we try to fix derailing so we don't have to use re-railers.
I wish we could tell you why but  we are not there. Is this the only rerailer you have? Is it happening to all or just this one. Maybe and just maybe you have one that is out of gauge as Les (desertdweller) suggested.
To download pics you need a photobucket account or something similar.
Here is your first test. Do a search on downloading pics.

Jerry

After rereading your post to Les I went and derailed several different cars and every one of them rerailed with no problem. I use 9 inch and 18 r rerailers.

[rbryce1]

Jerry,

Thanks for the response.  I do intend to look for why they derailed, but that is not the problem I am asking about.

To answer your question, yes it happens on all re-railers on the tracks.  I have 7 re-railers on one track and 4 on a second.   I actually had one train make 2 laps, one at medium speed and the second at slow speed with 1 car slightly de-railed, and after crossing all 7 re-railers twice, I had to stop and fix it.

Since then, I have been watching this problem, trying many solutions and having no luck with the re-railers.  Again, the problem I am trying to solve is not the de-railing, but the failure to re-rail.  As I said in my last post, it looks like the majority of the time the truck will not re-rail if the lead wheel is the one off the track.  If the trailing wheel in the truck is de-railed, the re-railer will correct the problem.

I know how to post photos on photobucket, but not movies.

If it works, here is a link to a you tube video.  Not real great, but shows the way it is working.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9XpSuIEVFA&feature=youtu.be

It shows the lead wheel walk right up the re-railer, walk across the top and drop off the other side, staying de-railed the whole time.

[Jerrys HO]

rb,

Try to loosen the screw that holds the trucks on. They may be too tight to swing up into position.
I will keep watching but rather than pushing it use your loco.

Jerry

[Ken G Price]

On my Atlas rerailers the outside plastic ramp is flush with the top of the rail and also tight up against it.
From the video it looks like the Bachmann plastic out side ramp sits below the track so the wheel does not rise high enough to move back on to the rail.
Also if there is a gap between the rail and the ramp the wheel flange will just stay in the gap. These may be from a defective batch of rerailers.

That's all I can come up.

[J3a-614]

Rbryce1, I just took a look at this, and I think both Jerry and Ken may have your answers.

The fact that the performance is consistent suggests either the equipment has trucks that don't swivel as easily as they should (and that would contribute to derailments in the first place), or a design flaw in the rerailer.  It may well be both.

The first thing to do is check your wheel and track gauge with a National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) Standards gauge (which should be available through your hobby shop).  This isn't related to truck swivel as such, but consistent standards are important in something like this. 

The second is to make sure your trucks are mounted properly.  In the real old days, when people had to scratchbuild a lot, it was easy to have trucks off-center, but that's not so much a problem today.  What you should have is both trucks being able to swivel freely, and one--only ONE--should be a little looser than the other so that it can both swivel and rock.  This gives the effect of a three-point suspension, and in fact, full sized equipment does this with side bearings that are deliberately tight at one end of the car, and deliberately loose at the other end. 

Third, some rerailers--and I can't talk about Bachmann's version as I don't own any--do have a gap between the rerailer surface and the outside of the rail.  Such a gap can trap a wheel flange and keep it from crossing over the top of the rail to drop into the appropriate flangeway.  The solution here is either to replace the rerailers with another design like the one made by Atlas, or to fill in the gap with a piece of wood, plastic, or something to let a flange that is outside the its gauge to cross over the rail  and be dropped back inside the track gauge, the flange on the opposite wheel doing this by being pulled by the inside flangeway surface of the derailer.

That last bit sounds more complicated than it is, but it's really simple. 

Anyway, check this out, and see what happens; let us know, hopefully this will work out.