Consist???

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

Could someone please explain what “consist / consisiting” is?? I’m new to the hobby.

Thanks1

2

It is one of several terms that means two or more locomotives work in concert to tow a single train. IN DCC, your controller manual will take you through the steps of consisting two or more locomotives.

3

Or where you’ve got a multiple working unit (power car at each end), two power cars hooked up to behave as one train. Seen this doen at model railway shows and its really impressive (lights correctly working for directional running).

Ian

4

Basically a consist is a group of locomotives working together to pull a train that one locomotive cant pull alone. For example, on my layout it takes several engines to pull big trains up the hill.

5

wow thats a neat incline, seen the foam in the store.

Thanks for the pics

6

LOL. The definition above are correct as consist is used in modeling, but it really means the whole train in the 1:1 world. Not to pick, just to clarify. Fred

definition of consist:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&oi=defmore&defl=en&q=define:consist

7

Question: is that the same as MU’ing???[%-)]

8

Yup.

9

As flee307 pointed out, another meaning of the word “consist”, (of which motive power consisting is only a special case) is the makeup of a train. The term is especially used in relation to passenger train, as in the title of one of my favorite books, A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists.

The consist of the cars in a particular passenger train at a particular point on its route might be:
railway post office
baggage-express car
additional baggage-express Westbound on Wednesdays only for magazine distribution
2 coaches
diner-lounge
sleeper with such-and-such accomodations such as 10 roomettes 6 double bedrooms
etc.

Some more words…
A group of cars routinely assigned to a particular run might be called a trainset. In that meaning, you might read that to run the Super Chief between Chicago and Los Angeles daily in both directions takes six trainsets, or sets of equipment. While one trainset is leaving Chicago, another is enroute one day west, one has arrived a few hours earlier at Los Angeles and is being serviced, one trainset is going eastnbound up Raton Pass, one is approaching Kansas City station, etc. Each one of those trainsets is serving as the Super Chief at some point in its 2-day-each-direction journey.

Then there is the word “train”. You may think of a train as a locomotive and cars, but that bunch of equipment, that CONSIST, may not be a “train” in the operating sense at all if it is sitting in a yard, not going anywhere and not scheduled to be going anywhere. As an operating term, “train” is similar to a “flight” applied to an aircraft. It is a regularly scheduled or extra operation. If the schedule has a “train #4” scheduled to run at a particular time and the shiny diesel streamlined equipment is not available, it may be replaced that day by a steamer and older cars. That consist then becomes Train #4. If for some reason the railroad decides not to run that particular train o

10

Definitions:

  1. Train. (With a nod of thanks to Peter Josserand) One (or more) locomotives, with or without cars, displaying markers.

  2. Consist. (Prototype) The locomotive(s) and cars that occupy the space between the ditch lights and the markers (rear end device).

  3. Consist. (DCC) Two or more locomotives electronically joined to operate from a single controller. (The prototype calls this MU’ing, and the result is often referred to as a ‘lashup.’)

Please note that a DCC consist may include two (or more) steam locomotives. MU operation of steam is something the prototype never achieved.