It does not matter whether you use metal or plastic wheels on your railroad, if the gauge or "back to back" spacing on them is not right, you are going to experience derailments on curves, crossings, and turnouts. This applies to both locomotives and rolling stock, but rolling stock seems to be a more prevalent problem.

In the Garden Railways brochure covering Tips and Tricks, this topic appears and is discussed. After reading it, I thought it would be great to share it again with our members in the newsletter.

One of primary causes of derailments in any gauge is improper back-to-back wheel spacing. The dimension that works the best in G-Gauge is 1.575 inches. This can be checked in various ways. Since I do not own calipers or a metric ruler, I use my Kadee coupler height gauge to check this dimension. On the base of this gauge are two machined slots that are cut specifically for this wheel spacing function. They say that the Aristo track gauge will perform the same function, but I have not been able to obtain one to verify this. I check all of my rolling stock when I first take it out of the box. Most wheel sets are pretty close to the right spacing, but one set that is off can ruin your train running day. Spacing that is too wide is sometimes worse than too narrow. A wheel set that is too wide will never properly handle a curve, will pick a switch, or derail on a crossing.

To adjust wheel spacing, remove the offending wheel set. Twist and pull, or twist and push the wheels until the spacing is correct. If the wheels move too easily on the axel while doing this, try putting a drop of ACC cement on the inside where the axel meets the wheel to hold it in place.

This technique will dramatically improve car tracking, and as a result will significantly reduce the amount of derailments that you experience.