By Jon C.A. DeKeles LSOL.com Editor in Chief

Author  Bio Adding weight to your rolling stock can help them run better and stay on the track when the wind gets high. But a little weight can also help in temporary situations when you want to keep two trains apart.

On the recent 4th of July holiday we were having a large amount of people over so the railroad needed to be in perfect shape. We spend eight hours the day before working on the track, and testing the trains to make sure that everything would run without a problem. (Let me save you the anticipation... Everything worked out perfect. We ran two trains for several hours and did not have one derailment or problem. All the hard work paid off.) One of the things that we wanted to do was run our Army train. We had some items that had never been out of the box. You might remember seeing the video here at LSOL.com a few weeks ago. If you missed it you can find it here. US ARMY Train - July 4th, 2008 One of the things that I noted in our test runs is the tank cars were lighter than the other cars we were putting on the track. We found that the tank cars were susceptible to wind gusts that can happen on the B.I.G.D. Railroad and to some rougher areas of track. We took the time to weighted the tank cars and found that they weighed 1.4 pounds. We figure we should add a little weight to help them stay on the track. We used some left over white sand from one of our photo sessions where we need to make the scene look like winter. Any kind of beach sand should work. Ours had been stored outside so it was a little damp. The drier the sand the easier it will be to get it inside the tank car. We went inside the house and while Jo Anne was not looking we borrowed one of her funnels. This made it easy to put the sand in the tank car. One thing we found was that after you empty a funnel's worth of sand you will need to shake the car and level the sand to add more. This keeps the sand from piling up and blocking the end of the funnel. For general use we added about 1.2 pounds to each of the cars bringing the total weight of the car to around 2.6 pounds. This is not rocket science, so add what will work best for you. We found, for us, the extra pound helped keep the tank car on the track. Keep in mind we were only running a few tank cars. If you were running 30 tank cars this would add over 30 pounds for your engine to pull. Depending on what engine you are using you could add more weight than it is able to handle. But wait there's more! Did you know that extra weight in your rolling stock can be used in another way. Read on... Weight vs. Speed and Time On July 4th we wanted to run two trains, but the ones that we wanted to run were not installed with any remote control options. So this was going to make it two trains on one track running at two independent speeds. Train (1) Aristo-Craft Mallet with four heavyweight passenger cars. Train (2) RS-3 (older models) with several types of tank cars, 20' flat cars with loads and a caboose. We started Train(2) with two RS-3's, but quickly found that that with two engines Train (2) was too fast and would catch up to train one in about 6 laps on the railroad. So we removed one of the RS-3's and found that that we now at about 8 laps before Train (2) would catch up to Train (1). We did not have any instant Bodnar electronic solutions so we came up with the idea of adding more weight to the tank cars to make the Train (2) load heavier and to make it run slower. This way it would make it run closer to the speed of Train (1). First thing we did was add an extra pond to each of the tank cars to make the weight 3 1/2 pounds. We found that this helped, but that more weight was needed. After a little experimenting we were able to slow down Train(2) to the point where we were talking about hours of running and not numbers of laps before Train(2) even got close to catching up to Train(1) So is this the perfect solution for running two trains on one main line? Of course not. Could you overload your pulling engine and burn out the motor? Sure, but not if you are careful and find trains that have a similar speed so you are only adding some weight to the rolling stock on the train that needs to go slower. For us it was a simple and easy solution so that we could enjoy time with our friends and not have to be stopping and starting trains all day. I can tell you our guests were amazed to see the trains running and how they never caught up to one another. We ran trains from 3pm to 11pm with out a single issue. at the end of the night many of us sat in our chairs right at the edge of the railroad and watched fireworks from the local park and our neighbors. It really was the perfect 4th of July. Add weight to your tank cars. Jon: Great idea, guess the wind here in VA is that strong to need extra weight. Your layout is really starting to grow and look super. Jim O'Connor - 07/22/2008 - 16:30 What Happened I want to know what happened to ya when Jo Anne found out you was useing her funnel for sand installation ? Carl Pollitt - 07/23/2008 - 06:23 Don't Say a Word It has been washed and returned and as long as she does not read this or any of you email her, she will never know. :) Jon DeKeles - 07/23/2008 - 06:51 Don't Say a Word Jon, I tried that with one of Ann's turkey basters when I used it for glue for laying ballast. She found out and was not happy. Good luck, Noel Noel Widdifield - 07/23/2008 - 06:57 Weight The first thing I check on a new car is the wheels. If they are plastic, I immediately replace them with metal. This adds weight and lowers the center of gravity. Putting sand in a tank car adds to its weight, but it raises the center of gravity and the car could overturn on a curve in a fast freight. Also, beware of beach sand. It can be corrosive. Bill Muller - 08/29/2008 - 19:50 Top of Page