How Long of a Train do you Run on Your Layout?


Greg@mnrr

Greg@mnrr

Section Hand
I try to limit my train length to approximately seven 40' cars or more if they are ore cars and then maybe 16 or so cars per train. I run my trains very slowly because of the smaller size of my layout which is in a 16 foot by 12 foot room. The siding at Omro is shorter so a short train is dictated to take the siding and let the longer trains pass on the main line.

I love to watch longer trains and unit trains run on other layouts.

What size or length of train do you run?

Thanks.

Greg
 
I keep my passenger trains to about 6-10 cars if I have 'em for that road, and my freights between 6 (for local spotting) and 24 cars for long hauls or drags. My current build, where I have just gotten around to laying track, is 18' X 9', twice around the room with an overpass...so it's a folded loop design. Like you, I run at typical scale speeds covering maybe a foot/per second for passenger and half that or less for the freight. I can run a N&W Class J 4-8-4 on fast freight, say a string of mail or reefers (meat, spoilables) at the same limited speeds as the passenger counterpart, though, just for a changeup.
 
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My locals are dictated by the number of spots in any of my eleven towns, sometimes I switch more than one town at a time; but they are generally around 8-10 cars. I'll sometimes run unit trains of ethanol tankers or grain hoppers to a large industry and switch out 16 cars. For through freights, I run 18-20 cars plus a double-headed diesel with a caboose for a maximum of 23-24 cars; which is the approximate length of all of my passing sidings. It's also the length of most of my staging tracks, although I have several that are longer. I don't do passenger.

Willie
 
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At home I run a single steam engine or two smaller diesels, and 10 40-50 foot cars. Passenger trains are 5-6 cars and a single unit, steam or diesel.
At the club I run between 20-50 cars, unless it is a unit coal train. In that case, I run 60-80 cars. Passenger trains are between 7-10 cars, and up to 3 diesels.
 
Passenger trains are 4-5 cars, freight are 12-14 cars.
 
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Sounds like a pattern is developing - I typically run trains of 8 to 10 40' cars, sometimes 12 to 14 ore cars. At the club I belonged to (before moving to New England 21 years ago), we frequently ran "division" (yard to yard) of around 40 cars, peddler freights were restricted to 12 cars - forcing (allowing) more trains running on the layout.
 
My "layout" at home allows me to consist 6-8 locos with a run back and forth of maybe 3-9". At the club I have run 30'+ of 6 locos and manifest freight, but that gets hard to keep a check on what is happening at each end. (or in the middle) There is a y/tube video of a member's 107 car (40-50'ers) with 2 Big Boys in charge. I, and others, can now run these long trains, with distributed power, since the installation off DCC and a rule that we run in one direction only and shorter trains that will fit into the passing sidings (10' approx.) can run either direction. (Just a little unashamed DCC plug there).
 
I operate through freights with 12-16 cars (but they are 30-36 ft cars) and most locals are in the 6-10 car range.
 
Greg@mnrr said:
What size or length of train do you run?
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The size that fits the layout. As I don't have a layout right now, all my running is at the museum. Train lengths vary from 43 cars to 84 cars. Interestingly enough, the trains with the most cars aren't the longest, because the ore train's cars are only 20' long. As for passenger trains I regularly run my San Francisco Chief with 19 or 20 cars.
 
My siding are good for 7 - 8 50' cars so that limits my train length, although I occasionally run up to 12 car trains.
 
N-scale freight trains:

Currently, my tank-car train has about 25 Athearn ethanol tank cars, several Procor tank cars with factory-applied graffiti, plus a handful of GATX tank cars, but a few cars keep decoupling. So, I just bought all new Atlas 30K crude-oil tank cars with factory-installed BLMA body-mount couplers, so I'm going to try running all 32 cars (I also bought some Procor decals to "Procor-ize" a few of the new Atlas cars).

I also have a 25-car BLMA spine-car train all with Trainworx' FedEx loads, but haven't assembled it yet. Plus, I have about 50 yellow Railbox/TTX boxcars of all four types (R-BOX, A-BOX, T-BOX, F-BOX) that I hope to try to run someday (one with a custom FRED light!). This is to attempt to match a prototype photo of a mile-long Railbox unit-train I saw once. My ultimate goal is to run 50-car unit-trains someday.

N-scale passenger lines:

My modern passenger rail is limited to five 85' bi-level cars each, which is close to prototype and is the limit of my road numbers (even though I have a LOT of passenger cars, and a pile of F40PHs in three different roadnames). I went out of my prototype location (mid-1990s Los Angeles), and bought three Chicago Metra F40PHs and a ton of Metra rolling stock since the Kato bi-level coaches run so smoothly, look excellent, and support Kato's interior LED kits.
 
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My sidings dictate the length of the trains I run and 12-14 forty footers are the maximum for freight. I only have eight passenger cars and two express reefers; so, I guess 5 car passenger trains are my max.
 
For me a normal freight train is around 10 cars, but with the grades I have 14 plus a boose would be the limit for the length of the passing sidings and the capability of a single locomotive. Switching problems were purposely built into each town with the locomotive having to drop and pick up cars from both ends of the locomotive in two of the towns requiring a run around on the passing siding.

Passenger trains are varied. I have a doodlebug, an RDC that I usually have pull a second coach behind, a combine with a coach pulled by either a diesel or steamer plus my touris train which uses a number of coaches and dome cars borrowed from the North Coast Limited. Usually between 4 to 6 cars.
 
On the Philly & Scranton, that's set in the 70's, 80's to early 1990's, the cars are primarily 40' and 50'. Eventually, most of the passenger cars will be 73'ers, like the Reading used on its trains. (Athearn and Model Power cars come this length) I will use some longer passenger cars, as well as some longer freight cars, but have attempted to use 'shorty' cars, as my tightest mainline radii is 24" in several short sections. Most of the rest of it is 26", 28" and 30".

As for how long my trains are, about 13, 50' reefers, or about 13-17' coal cars, of mixed length. My mainline is mostly double track, but train lengths are roughly in the 8-10, to 12' range, which is somewhat disappointing given the layout's foot print, in some ways. A previous layout I had was roughly 18x24', and train lengths were about 8', which again, I was somewhat disappointed with, given its size.
 
I run trains between 2 cars for passenger trains, 1 express reefer and 1 passenger car, to 16 car freight trains. Generally my freight trains are about 10 cars. I need to make a operating change to determine the length of freight trains since I now have enough cars on the layout.

My last layout I ran 50-100 car freight trains.

Modeling the roaring 20's
President of the Lancaster Central Railroad
President of the Lancaster Central Chicago Terminal Railroad
 
otiscnj said:
..., which is somewhat disappointing given the layout's foot print, ...I was somewhat disappointed with, given its size.
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Look at it this way, with shorter trains one can run more trains! At the museum I will often seek out the shorter trains #135/6 (mixed train daily), #141/2 (express pigs), #272 (regional), and #262 (Portland exchange). With the longer trains I get tired of going back and forth checking the caboose is in motion and then running back to the front to be certain I'm not running the next signal.
 
With the longer trains I get tired of going back and forth checking the caboose is in motion and then running back to the front to be certain I'm not running the next signal.
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Yeah, who would ever have guessed you could get a workout with model trains as a bonus. ;)
 
I used to run 25-35 2 bay hoppers or 20 or so regular 40' sized freight cars, and 4-10 heavyweight passenger cars..I have a 4% grade and mostly power the freights with 2-8-8-2's and passenger with 4-8-2's. Some smaller trains of 5-8 cars are pulled by smaller power like 4-8-0's.
 
G'day ,As an experiment I've done 22 mixed freight on my HO layout . It was a struggle though and lately 10 double stack . As my layout is virtually flat now (after the rebuild) I expect that a little more might be possible. Cheers Rod .
 
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