Amen to that!
Lots of savvy and highly experienced responders above. I will add that undulating track and grades-that-are-steeper-than-we-think are often going to trip up the intrepid layout builder. My BLI Niagara can brute six Walthers Heavyweight passenger cars, plus two head-end reefers, up my 3% grades, and that’s the Paragon from 2004/5 with no traction tires.
I do lube my cars’ trucks, though, with plastics compatible ATF.
So I did just weigh the MTH engine. It is 23 ounces without the tender and 37 ounces with the tender on it combined. So that’s only 1 oz less than your engine. so do you guys still think its a weight issue?
Also I would like to add that I have a BLI n&w Y6B that I tried pulling the longest possible train that I could around this grade and it was able to pull 16 coal cars as well as 6 passenger cars. But these 4-8-4s are struggling to pull anything more than 4 passenger cars. I just put an order in for some tungsten putty so I’m hoping to see a change. I mean its super frustrating to see that. Haha
Beside adding weight, try removing the springs on the front and trailing trucks. That would put more weight on the drivers. Sometimes those springs do more harm than good.
Pete.
what do the passenger cars? i’m curious about the y6b
i’d estimate that the engine can pull (tractive effort) 5oz. (20-25% of weight on drivers)
better rolling cars require < 2% of their weigh to move on level track. add 2% for the grade and possibly another 1% (R/30) for a curve and that’s ~5% or ~100 oz (weight of train)
less 14 for the tender leaves ~86oz
do your 5 passenger cars weigh about ~17 oz/car?
That’s a good point, I had a 4-4-2 that pulled poorly and slipped a lot. Turned out the springs (particularly on the front truck) were so strong that the drivers were barely touching the track. Removing them greatly increased pulling power.
Also might want to check the tender - sometimes depending on how the power wipers on the tender trucks are set up, they can cause quite a bit of drag.
Weight of the tender is not relavent to pulling ability since that weight is not over the drivers.
However, the tender weight will work against you as it increases the load the engine has to pull.
So my tungaten weight came in the mail today. Ended up adding a little less than 4 oz and removed the rear spring for the guide wheels. Now the train has zero struggle at all up the grade. Now sure if it was the spring that helped the most or the weight. Just doesn’t seem like 3.5 oz would make that much of a difference. I may go ahead and remove the front spring as well just to see how it does.
Well, it’s good to see you’ve had a win, even if you’ve used the shot gun approach to trouble shooting![swg]
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
Very nice. Any amount of weight added in the right place helps. Just a warning it is possible to add too much. I added so much weight to a brass 2-10-0 that the drive coupling tube was slipping on the motor. I revamped to a universal shaft and all was good until it started clicking while pulling around 70 cars. The idler gear in the gear box broke. I then removed some weight and it’s been a great performer since.
Pete.