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I was running my 60198 train with the 60197 carriages attached (carriages from 60198 also on the train). My train has started to get lots of wheel spin even while on flat ground. What can I do?

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Slipping of a wheel is caused by a too low friction between the wheel and the surface. The most straightforward solution would be to reduce the mass of the carriages the locomotive has to pull, but that would be the least desirable too as you probably want to keep all currently attached carriages.

The other solution would be to increase the friction, for this you have two ways. The first is to increase the gripping forces between the wheel and the rails, for example by adding a rubber band or a thin piece of rubbery plastic (duct tape?) to the rim of the wheel. Texturing the wheel and/or the rail surface would work too, but you probably don't want to damage your pieces that way. The second way to increase friction forces is to add more mass to the locomotive itself, preferably directly above the wheels. This will increase the weight (downward acting force) pressing the wheels to the rails.

An additional, out-of-the-box option would be to convert one of the carriages into a support locomotive, thereby distributing the forces experienced by the drive wheels across more wheels.

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  • Would it be possible to increase the traction by adding weight to the locomotive?
    – IvanSanchez
    Commented May 31, 2023 at 21:08
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    @IvanSanchez "The second way to increase traction forces is to add more mass to the locomotive itself, ..." from the answer already suggests doing just that.
    – Mr47
    Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 7:29
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    As a more specific suggestion, I can attest that thin rubber O-rings work wonderfully for increasing traction, and they visually blend better with the black wheels found on 60198 (one of my friends had exactly the same issue with one of his builds using the locomotive from 60198, and this was his solution). And, with a bit of leg work, you can find ones that are exactly the correct size for this, which will help them last longer than something that needs to stretch out would.
    – Austin Hemmelgarn
    Commented Jun 1, 2023 at 11:29
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    There is a third option as well, which is to reduce the acceleration. A locomotive that tries to accelerate very quickly will just spin its wheels, but even a train with very little friction in the wheels can accelerate without slipping, so long as it does so gently enough. This solution requires changing nothing about the train itself, only how it's driven.
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Commented Jun 7, 2023 at 17:24
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For a locomotive counterweight, you might consider the 73090a 2x6x2 weighted brick https://www.bricklink.com/catalogItemIn.asp?P=73090a&in=S

Bricklink shows them with train sets, but I never had any of the sets they list - I think mine was from a floating boat kit: 4011 Cabin Cruiser.

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  • Welcome to Bricks.SE, Chris! Thank you for a great answer, hope you'll enjoy contributing to the site. Feel free to browse the help center and tour pages if you have any questions. A quick advice: all posts have a transparent edit history, so it's unnecessary to mark your edits as such if not for avoiding confusion (e.g. when editing a post as a reaction to someone's feedback).
    – zovits
    Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 7:50
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    Thanks for the edit pointer.
    – Chris Harrison
    Commented Jun 12, 2023 at 9:20

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