Greg Elmassian said:
The other place scale flanges won’t do is unsprung locomotives. The Aristo 3 axle block is famous for this, there is no up and down movement, only twisting along the long axis of the block.
Go up a grade and watch the leading axle come off the rails. Flanges are the only thing keeping the tread over the rail head and not derailing.
Greg
Greg,
That’s also another problem in derailing in 1:20 or 1:29th scale…the relative “stiffness” in lateral and longitudinal flexing of trucks. As another example in 1/8th scale…before a 1/8th scale piece of rolling stock is allowed to run on “club” tracks (on most tracks, the equipment has to be inspected before it is allowed to run), all dimensions on wheel back to back, wheel gauge, wheel flange height and width is checked with known inspection gages. During this inspection (mostly on rolling stock trucks, not locomotives), one wheel of a four-wheel truck is lifted off the track railhead at least 3/4" and the remaining three wheels HAVE to stay in contact with the railhead. That’s how “loose” the riding scale trucks are and they have two to four springs per side! I don’t think ANY 1:20 or 1:29th truck could pass that test!