I was so excited today I got my Royal American Shows train in…well the engine and 7 cars…13 more coming…and it’s gona be a problem…I don’t think the engine can handle 20 cars with the 3% grade…can I get a second engine and run them that way for more power…of will they just be in each others way?
Nick
P.S. I haven’t forgot the pics
If you find that the loco can’t handle the load on your grades, I see no problem with having the “local” railroad provide a helper or it could be a lease job.
Good luck,
On my big freights I always have two powered locos pulling.
I am not sure what a Royal American Show train is? But, did you run them yet and they could not make the grade? Have you cleaned up the bolsters of the car to make sure they are free wheeling? I found out the hard way that a well tunned free wheeling stock makes a big differences.
Far as getting in the way of each other, that depends on how much room you have. I love running 2 to 4 engines at the same time.
If diesel and you want a good pulling engine, PK E-6 will do the job. One will drag 60 cars up my 1.5 grade.
Cuda Ken
If you use DCC, yes, it’s pretty simple to ‘speed match’ engines so they all run at the same speed and all start and stop together. If you’re still using DC the answer is ‘maybe’. It’s kind of hit-and-miss whether any two engines will run together well on DC. I’ve found Atlas engines tend to be pretty good. When I was using DC I could run say an Atlas GP-7 and RS-11 together for example. There are things you can do like adding resistors to the faster engine to slow it down, but if you’re going to go to all that trouble you might as well convert to DCC (IMHO). [swg]
For what it’s worth, when the Housatonic hauls the Strates(sp?) circus through town they use 3 locomotives to do it as the train runs 50 os so cars and takes nearly an hour to clear the crosing in the middle of town so you have a prototypical situation and solution. (no 3% grade either.) J.R.