All:
Regarding backing/shoving long trains I ‘d like to share a success story. I’ve learned a lot on this forum, and in return you all might find my experience interesting and some of it helpful.
As info I’m 63, started model railroading in 1961 with a Gilbert American Flyer S gauge set. My HO layout described below is my second HO layout. I’ve been employed by 5 different railroads, in order – C&TS RR in Chama NM, Texas State Railroad in Rusk TX, Missouri Pacific RR in Bismarck MO, Frisco Railroad in Chattanooga TN, and the Burlington Northern RR in Springfield MO, Portland OR and Overland Park (Kansas City area) KS. For the past 16 years with my own company I’ve made my living moving high, wide and overweight loads (boilers, pressure vessels, heat exchangers, transformers, generators, presses, etc.) on railroads in the US, Canada and Mexico. I’m now retired from that.
I’ve posted most of the following basic info before in various threads on this site but I’ll go ahead and repeat them here in summary form.
My model railroad is set in the mid-1970s, the location is somewhere in “the only flat spot" in West Virginia, and the road names of most of the engines (95% diesel – 70% Bachmann, 30% Atlas Trainman) are from the CSX family tree. As this time frame was a period of significant change in the railroad industry I can historically run 2, 3 or more different road names in a power consist – convenient and interesting.
Anyway, the layout is 17 years old and is HO. It has 4 separate loops with a small yard and 3 small industries and a team track. It is L shaped with the inside L corner curve tracks pushed back toward their matching outside curve tracks. I’ve changed some of the track four times over these 17 years averaging about a 3% change each time – so it’s basically still the same. It is as perfectly flat as I can make it. The layout has also been disassembled into two sections (built this way for this purpose) and moved twice in these 17 years.
It is all DC (no DCC) and I use 5 MRC Tech 2 Railmaster 2400 power packs.
The track is all Atlas Code 100 NS flex. The 24 turnouts are all old Model Power #4 electrics (except one Model Power electric curve-on-curve.) There are 9 Atlas crossing diamonds of varying degrees in use. At the yard throat I used a Model Power Double Slip Switch for 16 years, but this year I exchanged it for two standard MP #4s (the DSS was getting troublesome.)
The three major loops’ radii are 23”, 19” and 16”. The ore train (with only AHM shorty ore cars, one loco [an Atlas Trainman RS32] and one caboose) operates on 11” radius curves, and its loop is 80% hidden (makes the “boring” unit train more interesting/fascinating when it pops out and back in; it does so twice when making the full loop. You never get to see the entire train at once.)
I’ve got about 300 railcars. For most of these 17 years I have chosen railcars based on their looks (not manufacturer; that’s one reason I have used Code 100 – to accommodate all types of wheels including the pizza cutters.) I have and run freight cars manufactured by Athearn (BlueBox and a few RTR), MDC/RH, Bachmann, Life Like, AHM, Atlas, Walthers, plus miscellaneous – Tyco, Mantua, Tru Scale plus 2 or 3 more. About 95% of all the railcars have plastic wheels; the rest metal.
The maximum car length is 52’. ALL cars no matter their length are targeted for a weight of 2.5 ounces each. I guess the average is currently around 3 ounces per car.
The couplers are mostly all KDs with a few of the other brand of plastic couplers on the 32-car unit ore train (I glue the plastic knuckles shut – I find these couplers are generally risky and/or useless on long trains as the greater stress on their shanks/necks can and do bend vertically resulting in a broke-in-two train.)
As most of you do, I bring all my railcars to the “car shop” before operating them. The normal biggest problems are the various trucks and wheel sets. I do what I need to in order get the cars to roll at least well – fixing, grinding, filing, shimming, filling the railcar frame’s truck bolster holes and drilling them out, changing, exchanging, gauging, cleaning, lubing if needed, etc. to most all the trucks and axle/wheels combos (Intermountain replacement wheel sets are a big help.) Sometimes this work is a real pain. And I will admit I spend far more time on fixing/upgrading cars (and adding weight to locomotives) than I do to scenery. You can tell where my priorities are. But they pay do off -
Yesterday, for the first time on my 19” radius loop, I ran a 70-car train around it backwards three times in a row with no derailments (and I didn’t cherry-pick the cars.) That was VERY satisfying. The locos were two Bachmann GP 35s (WM) with their DCC boards removed and about 3 ounces added to each. Speed was about a scale 15mph – slow, steady and smooth. This train had 12 52’ cars with the rest 40’ and under, and 85% to 90% plastic wheels, the rest metal wheels. There were at least 6 to 7 different manufacturers’ cars in the train.
[By the way, why do I want to back/shove long trains? Because it’s a challenge and it when successful it tells me I’ve got the actual, physical train operations about as good as I’m going to get them.]
And, as you can guess, I’m very particular about my trackwork (absolutely necessary for running a 70-car train backwards or even forward on this relatively tight radius route.) ALL rail joints are soldered, and the electric gaps are made with a Dremel cut-off disk after gluing the rail to the tie strip 3 ties-spaces on each side of the proposed cut location. Every joint or cut gets the Dremel tool and/or file smooth-it-out-treatment. The track turnouts and crossing diamonds have all gotten “The treatment” before they were installed. For more info see my responses to Unfettered’s thread, “Turnouts Question”, of 9-15-11 on this site under Scale Specific Discussions:HO.
I hope this info was beneficial or at least interesting to you, and if you have any thoughts, questions, procedures, tips, ideas, etc., lay ‘em on me. [I’m just waiting for one of you to say, “With all this backwards business, I’ll bet when you run your 70-car train forward there’s cars derailed all along the right of way.”
]
DougC
Regarding backing/shoving long trains I ‘d like to share a success story. I’ve learned a lot on this forum, and in return you all might find my experience interesting and some of it helpful.
As info I’m 63, started model railroading in 1961 with a Gilbert American Flyer S gauge set. My HO layout described below is my second HO layout. I’ve been employed by 5 different railroads, in order – C&TS RR in Chama NM, Texas State Railroad in Rusk TX, Missouri Pacific RR in Bismarck MO, Frisco Railroad in Chattanooga TN, and the Burlington Northern RR in Springfield MO, Portland OR and Overland Park (Kansas City area) KS. For the past 16 years with my own company I’ve made my living moving high, wide and overweight loads (boilers, pressure vessels, heat exchangers, transformers, generators, presses, etc.) on railroads in the US, Canada and Mexico. I’m now retired from that.
I’ve posted most of the following basic info before in various threads on this site but I’ll go ahead and repeat them here in summary form.
My model railroad is set in the mid-1970s, the location is somewhere in “the only flat spot" in West Virginia, and the road names of most of the engines (95% diesel – 70% Bachmann, 30% Atlas Trainman) are from the CSX family tree. As this time frame was a period of significant change in the railroad industry I can historically run 2, 3 or more different road names in a power consist – convenient and interesting.
Anyway, the layout is 17 years old and is HO. It has 4 separate loops with a small yard and 3 small industries and a team track. It is L shaped with the inside L corner curve tracks pushed back toward their matching outside curve tracks. I’ve changed some of the track four times over these 17 years averaging about a 3% change each time – so it’s basically still the same. It is as perfectly flat as I can make it. The layout has also been disassembled into two sections (built this way for this purpose) and moved twice in these 17 years.
It is all DC (no DCC) and I use 5 MRC Tech 2 Railmaster 2400 power packs.
The track is all Atlas Code 100 NS flex. The 24 turnouts are all old Model Power #4 electrics (except one Model Power electric curve-on-curve.) There are 9 Atlas crossing diamonds of varying degrees in use. At the yard throat I used a Model Power Double Slip Switch for 16 years, but this year I exchanged it for two standard MP #4s (the DSS was getting troublesome.)
The three major loops’ radii are 23”, 19” and 16”. The ore train (with only AHM shorty ore cars, one loco [an Atlas Trainman RS32] and one caboose) operates on 11” radius curves, and its loop is 80% hidden (makes the “boring” unit train more interesting/fascinating when it pops out and back in; it does so twice when making the full loop. You never get to see the entire train at once.)
I’ve got about 300 railcars. For most of these 17 years I have chosen railcars based on their looks (not manufacturer; that’s one reason I have used Code 100 – to accommodate all types of wheels including the pizza cutters.) I have and run freight cars manufactured by Athearn (BlueBox and a few RTR), MDC/RH, Bachmann, Life Like, AHM, Atlas, Walthers, plus miscellaneous – Tyco, Mantua, Tru Scale plus 2 or 3 more. About 95% of all the railcars have plastic wheels; the rest metal.
The maximum car length is 52’. ALL cars no matter their length are targeted for a weight of 2.5 ounces each. I guess the average is currently around 3 ounces per car.
The couplers are mostly all KDs with a few of the other brand of plastic couplers on the 32-car unit ore train (I glue the plastic knuckles shut – I find these couplers are generally risky and/or useless on long trains as the greater stress on their shanks/necks can and do bend vertically resulting in a broke-in-two train.)
As most of you do, I bring all my railcars to the “car shop” before operating them. The normal biggest problems are the various trucks and wheel sets. I do what I need to in order get the cars to roll at least well – fixing, grinding, filing, shimming, filling the railcar frame’s truck bolster holes and drilling them out, changing, exchanging, gauging, cleaning, lubing if needed, etc. to most all the trucks and axle/wheels combos (Intermountain replacement wheel sets are a big help.) Sometimes this work is a real pain. And I will admit I spend far more time on fixing/upgrading cars (and adding weight to locomotives) than I do to scenery. You can tell where my priorities are. But they pay do off -
Yesterday, for the first time on my 19” radius loop, I ran a 70-car train around it backwards three times in a row with no derailments (and I didn’t cherry-pick the cars.) That was VERY satisfying. The locos were two Bachmann GP 35s (WM) with their DCC boards removed and about 3 ounces added to each. Speed was about a scale 15mph – slow, steady and smooth. This train had 12 52’ cars with the rest 40’ and under, and 85% to 90% plastic wheels, the rest metal wheels. There were at least 6 to 7 different manufacturers’ cars in the train.
[By the way, why do I want to back/shove long trains? Because it’s a challenge and it when successful it tells me I’ve got the actual, physical train operations about as good as I’m going to get them.]
And, as you can guess, I’m very particular about my trackwork (absolutely necessary for running a 70-car train backwards or even forward on this relatively tight radius route.) ALL rail joints are soldered, and the electric gaps are made with a Dremel cut-off disk after gluing the rail to the tie strip 3 ties-spaces on each side of the proposed cut location. Every joint or cut gets the Dremel tool and/or file smooth-it-out-treatment. The track turnouts and crossing diamonds have all gotten “The treatment” before they were installed. For more info see my responses to Unfettered’s thread, “Turnouts Question”, of 9-15-11 on this site under Scale Specific Discussions:HO.
I hope this info was beneficial or at least interesting to you, and if you have any thoughts, questions, procedures, tips, ideas, etc., lay ‘em on me. [I’m just waiting for one of you to say, “With all this backwards business, I’ll bet when you run your 70-car train forward there’s cars derailed all along the right of way.”
]DougC
