Re-Railers???

[Joe323]

Frankly I only used re-railers as substutes for grade crossings but mow I make my own crossings.

[jbrock27]

All excellent, albeit, common sense advice Roger.  It appears to me that rbryce1 is following that advice and doing just that-he's found the problem (Bachmann re-railers) and is going about fixing the problem (his attempted modification of said re-railers).

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

Sometimes it seems the laws of physics don't apply and "s**t 'appens" :-)

I thought that was a law of physics. 

[jbrock27]

...Or is it Murphy's Law ??

[jward]

the laws of physics always apply, though not always in obvious ways. wheels will climb the rail anywhere it is easier for them to do so than follow the track. anything that causes the wheel flange to raise above the rail is a potential derailment. this could be a burr on the rail ( I always file the rail ends before laying track) or a lateral twist in the track. or even a car with the trucks too tight. or it could be track out of guage. or rolling stock which is operating on curves that exceed the limits of truck or coupler swing.

there are many possible causes, but the law of physics always applies.'


rbryce has figured out how to get the cars to rerail, now the trick is to keep them from derailing in the first place.

[rbryce1]

rbryce has figured out how to get the cars to rerail, now the trick is to keep them from derailing in the first place.

That's going to far easier for me as 99.75% of all of my de-railings are manually induced de-railings to test the re-railer!  As I have said before, I have very, very few actual de-railings, but if one should occur, I would like the re-railer to work correctly to resolve it.

This argument is like saying that if I go off shore on my boat, I should never be concerned about my EPIRB working correctly because I should never need it, as if my boat was made correctly, it should never sink!

However, in the rare instance that I actually do sink, I think I would like it to work!

[Jerrys HO]

rbryce

This argument is like saying that if I go off shore on my boat, I should never be concerned about my EPIRB working correctly because I should never need it, as if my boat was made correctly, it should never sink!

However, in the rare instance that I do actually sink, I think I would like it to work!

I think I would want to test my EPIRB before I test my re-railer.

Jerry

[rbryce1]

Here is the difference I see between the Bachmann unit that does not work and the Atlas one that does work.

In the photos below, you can see the Bachmann's external ramp comes to a sharp point at the top.  The wheel simply rides up the ramp until it is pinched at the top, cannot slide over the rails, simply hops over the plastic lip, and drops into the groove beside the rail, then continues the length of the re-railer in the groove until the end, where it falls back out still in a de-railed condition.










The Atlas design has a flat surface at the top of the ramp, even with the top of the rails.  When the outside wheel rises to the top, it goes onto the flat surface.  As the inside wheel is being pulled over to the opposite side by the wedge on the inside of the tracks, the wheel sitting on the flat surface slides sideways where it slides over the rail and drops into position inside the rail, thus re-railing correctly.

[Jerrys HO]

rb

You need a photo bucket account to download pics. I would love to see the pic as I stated a couple of posts ago I have two versions. The way you are describing the Atlas version sounds like one I have, but only one ( don't know where it came from,could be a newer set or some newer track I purchased and that was thrown in) the others or the one with the groove next to the rail. Wonder if you could slip a small piece of styrene in there and it works?
I'll try to post some pics of the two I have.
Jerry

[rbryce1]

Thanks Jerry,  I was trying to attach the photos using Additional Options.  The Photobucket method worked.  See the above post where I added the photos.

[jward]

looking at your photos, it appears that the flangeways are too wide on the rerailer. if they were the proper width, it shouldn't matter if there is a groove on the outside of the rail, the inner beveled piece would pull the wheel back on the track. proper flangeway width is the same as a hacksaw blade, which is easier to use to measure flangeways than an nmra guage.

you can narrow the flangeways by glueing strips of styrene in the flangeways. then using the hacksaw blade to cut them to proper width.

[jbrock27]

Ok rb1, I have a question for you (nice pics by the way-it was good you got them up here).  Now that you have found what the problem appears to be and have been given a suggestion on how to correct the design flaw, are you going to?  I ask this in consideration for your having found a workable solution by using Atlas re-railers, which alleviates having to spend more time, effort, perhaps money even, to correct the problem you are having with your Bachmann re-railers. 
I can tell you what I would do.

[rogertra]

Save your money and instead take the time to maintain your track, locos and rolling stock and then you will not need rerailers.

Properly laid good quality track, well maintained quality locos and rolling stock do not need rerailers.

Purchase cheap track, locos and rolling stock and you get what you pay for.

If you find your equipment is frequently derailing then something or a combination of things are wrong with your track laying skills,
locomotive maintenance or rolling stock maintenance.  Well laid track, well maintained locomotives and well maintained rolling stock do not need rerailers.

As I said before, the only rerailers I have are in the entrance to and the exists from my hard to reach staging tracks.  If, like on my previous model railroads my staging was easily accessible, I'd have no rerailers as they are not needed.

[Doneldon]

roger-

While I agree with you that careful trackwork, quality components and consistent maintenance are the keys to smooth operation, I'm not so sure that they can prevent all derailments. The proof of that is that real railroads have derailments all of the time but they have professional trackwork and continuous maintenance. I'm all for the careful work you reference but I think it's a little bit of an overstatement to suggest there will never be any derailments.
                                                                                                                                                           -- D

[rogertra]

roger-

While I agree with you that careful trackwork, quality components and consistent maintenance are the keys to smooth operation, I'm not so sure that they can prevent all derailments. The proof of that is that real railroads have derailments all of the time but they have professional trackwork and continuous maintenance. I'm all for the careful work you reference but I think it's a little bit of an overstatement to suggest there will never be any derailments.
                                                                                                                                                           -- D

Yes, I did somewhat exaggerate for effect but the last time I had a derailment was because I'd failed to set a switch for a propelling move and derailed two cars.  I'm trying to emphasise that derailments should be rare and not happen every time you run a train.  If that happens, all the rerailers in the world will not help.  I really do not see their use out on the railroad.  Derailments should be a very rare occurrence making rerailers unnecessary on a properly maintained model railroad.