How can you doublehead steamers period if there’s no friggin’ coupler on the front end of most current engines?!?!?
Use your imagination!! These are toy trains![:D]
If we are going to go through the trouble of hooking up the two motors, we can easily replace the front wheels with trucks. What fun is railroading if we can tweek?[:)][:D][:)] I think I m going to try it!!
Angelo
Add one, I have in 027. I’m working at adding a coupler to a #1 gauge steamer, presently.
Hey all, sorry to take so long getting back to you on this. Here’s what I have:
I measured 2 late-model Williams diesels, both powered. I took measurements with and without a 15-car mixed freight of postwar and modern cars. I held the voltage as close to the same as I could in each run. Obviously, current is in AC amps.
loco 1 loco 2 both
no load loaded no load loaded no load loaded
current 0.98 1.62 0.82 1.25 1.75 2.20
When running the pair with no load, the current was roughly the same as the sum of the individual no-load currents. With a load, the pair drew about 2/3 amp less than the sum of the individual loaded currents. I think the major question we were trying to answer is, how much current does the second unit draw? As you can see above, the answer is the famous “it depends.” From my readings, it’s sharing the load with the first loco, just like the prototype.
FJ and G, I will re-run the test with my MTH locos that are closest to one another in no-load current and see how things come out. I have both PS1 and PS2 so I will test with both if I can. I may not have a pair of PS1 locos that are geared similarly enough to do the test without them fighting one another.
This is interesting stuff. If you compare what they use for the train it is in the first case 1.62-0.98= 0.64 amps. In the second case 1.25-0.82= 0.43 amps. The first loco needs more wattage to move itself and more wattage to move the train. About half more than the second engine. The train is not the big issue then, but the drivetrain and it’s resistance is. Both added unloaded is 1.75, which is a bit less (0.05) than the two apart.
2.20 is the amp reading for both loaded which means they only need 0.45 amps to move the train.
The whole thing seems to be that the motor uses most energy to overcome the drag of it’s drivetrain and not to pull the wagons… The second engine uses 0.6 amps more in this train (compared to the first loco) and I think that that won’t be a big subject in using nonpowered or powered units.
a small adition: the second engine also has headlights, so the bare engine uses 0.5 amps more than using a dummy (with lights, consuming 0.05 amps each)
Boy I should’ve done a preview, it looked fine on the screen before I sent it. Sorry!
never mind, I think I know what the readings where. It’s nice that we know what we talk about with hard evidence…
Thanx for the effort!