Adding Weight to Rolling Stock

 Greetings All,

In early 2021 I reached out to noted modeler and good friend Sir Neal of Atlantic Pacific RR fame about improving my newly painted SP Double Stack 125 Service well cars. Sir Neal recommended using self stick 1/4 ounce weights for the containers and freight cars.

As Jimmy Dugan said "That's good advice"!!! 

A short time later I found this box of 720 1/4 ounce pieces with adhesive tape online and made the purchase.

The adding of weight was a long time coming and these newly purchased weights were an immediate improvement over my scrounged weights.

For the containers I added two pieces for a 1/2 ounce of additional weight to the 20' containers and four pieces for a total of 1 ounce to the 40' containers that will ride in the bottom of the well cars.

 

I added two pieces for a total on 1/2 ounce of weight to most of my 40' boxcars. This was a lot easier than finding washers and using silicone adhesive like did in the past for some models. 

I used NMRA Recommended Practice 20-1 as noted below as a guideline for the project.

 

Most of the 50' and 57' box cars got four pieces or one ounce of additional weight.

Sixty foot boxcars received additional weight as needed. The 86' boxcar fleet received six pieces, or one and one half ounces of additional weight and they showed a dramatic improvement.

I placed the weights as evenly as possible throughout the cars concentrating on adding the weight above the trucks where possible.

In mid April 2021 I purchased a second box of weights for my passenger cars and dummy locomotives. Here is one of several non-powered Athearn BB U28Cs that received 3/4 ounce of weight. 

All in all this was nice improvement to my rolling stock. Retrofitting the cars was not without peril. I did break a few stirrups, mainly on some P-2000 boxcars. I swear if I looked at them hard they would break! Opening up some other brands like the Bowser box cars was a disaster waiting to happen so I bypassed those cars.

I did not add weight to the Bachmann Silver Series or Mantua Heavyweight freight cars. 

Most of the fleet is now consistently weighted to the NMRA RP 20-1 standard. So far the heavier trains are rolling very well with little to no wobble. Train lengths are unaffected. If need be I think I have enough locomotives to overcome that! 

Thanks for reading!!!

See ya soon!!!