Our club is planning to hold an endurance “test” during an upcoming open-house to raise some funds. We will ask for predictions as to how many scale miles will be travelled during a certain period. An interesting idea came up: why not try and establish / break the current world record (we do not think small ha ha ) for continuous running of a model train during the open house. (It will probably last a lot longer than the open house.) We will most likely use Kato or Walthers Trainline (the Trainline locos have turned out to be awesomely reliable and work well as club-owned stock)
Anyone know of the criteria to establish a record / what the exisiting record is? How often can the loco be “serviced” during the process? What are the monitoring / recordkeeping requirements?
We also plan to deliver a blow-by-blow account of the test ( or should that be lap by lap) in blog format. Any comments will be appreciated.
Google guinnessworldrecords.com for everything you need to know about establishing and certifying a world record - straight from the people who keep the records and publish The Book.
You need to talk to Dave Harrison over on the Atlas Forum. He’s involved with Chicago’s MSI layout, where they literally run thousands of real miles every year. So far, the best endurance record that he’s talked about is Athearn’s SD70’s, which apparently traveled approx. 4000 real miles with regular light maintenance before catastrophic failure (usually, motor failure).