Garden Railway Forum

What's your experience of rolling roads? I recently bought a new Bertie and thought it would be a good idea to start it off by running it in a bit on a rolling road, as the users manual suggests that the loco may tend to be a bit difficult to run slowly for the first couple of times. I bought a rolling road which had been reviewed in Garden Rail magazine where each axle sits on two sets of 1.2cm roller bearings. I raised steam and placed the Bertie on the rolling road and it sat there furiously blowing off steam but not turning its wheels at all.So I placed it on the track and it trundled off quite happily with no problems at all. I thought the rolling road itself might need running in (!) so I tried putting a battery loco on it. It would only turn the road bearings at maximum power and after a while the gearbox showed signs of slipping so I quickly stopped it. It seems to me the weight of a 16mm or g scale loco causes the bearings to stick and offer too much resistance, defeating the whole object of the thing. Probably better just to run in on blocks with the wheels off the ground.

Contact the supplier if it's faulty.

Rolling roads are a good thing, worth having with a live steamer at least as setting up the loco on blocks provides no resistance.

As Tom said, it might be worth contacting the manufacturer if there is an issue. Ballraces should not need much to turn them as it defeats the object of having a bearing.

The only think that might be worth looking at is how the individual sets are positioned and how the wheels are sitting. The ones I use on my 5 inch stuff sometimes need a little wiggle to get everything located correctly and lined up.