A summary of Heavyweight advice

recently Kevin Strong (East Broad Top) kindly hipped me to a set of four aristo heavyweights that his father had for sale. So out to MD I went--kevin didn't tell me his Dad runs what must be one of the finest and most impressive garden railways in the US! a delightful man.

So I have the heavyweights which are all old style, three coaches and a Pullman. Two of them have had the interiors removed and plastic wheels added to decrease weight. Those two have also had the coupler tangs dramatically (and very effectively) shortened.

So they run around my layout, which has R3 (8 Ft. diameter) curves or larger, but as everyone notes they tend to derail a lot. The drag with the six wheel trucks is very high.


So I read through a lot of old threads on the aristo heavyweights and it looks like this is the consensus about how to make them less derailment prone, aside from lubing them well

1. Switch to the newer 2 wheel trucks
2. Shorten the space between the cars
3. Make the middle wheel flange-less

From what I've read, trying to run the three wheel trucks with two wheels does not work well. I'll try shortening the coupler tang, and I may replace the plastic wheels (Kevin's dad is a battery man) with aristo metal wheels

Anyone else have any suggestions/experiences?