One of the most important things you can do to make sure that your model railroad cars run properly is to make sure that they have been weighted to meet NMRA standards.  This helps in making sure that the cars will not jump off of the track when pulling a long train.  It also assists in making sure that your locomotives will be able to pull the correct amount of cars, especially when you have a grade on your layout.

One of the easiest ways to measure cars to figure out their correct weight is to build a tool.

I built this tool by using a scrap of wood, some track and a Kadee coupler height tool.  I also used some roadbed, but it is not necessary.   I used a scrap of wood about 3/4 of an inch larger than the width of the track and fastened the track to it using normal track nails.  The re-railer makes it much easier to set cars on the track.  After assembling the Kadee coupler height tool, I screwed it into place at one end of the track.  The next step is draw a line even with the center of the coupler on the Kadee tool next to the track.  Use a measuring tape (or ruler) and measure off 1 inch increments, and mark as you see in the picture.

In my next post I will describe how to use the tool to figure out the correct weight for the car being measured.