Is 2.6 to steep of a grade in HO scale? thanks Martin
2.6% is a piece of cake compared to my 3½% grades. Light weight locomotives don’t do well at 3½% but my Athearn SD40-2s are easy.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
Okay thanks I’ll be running large equipment and some small stuff
Depends. Large equipment (guess you meant locos) doesn’t necesarily mean pulling power. How many locos? Will they all be powered or dummy? Are locos 4 axle or 6 axle? Some loco manufacture’s have great torque and power at low speeds, others you gotta crank it up. How many rolling stock in your manifest? Will they all meet NMRA weight standards? See, lots of variables.
I have a helix with 22 inch radius, 4 inch rise per loop, which equates to 3.1% grade. Some of my locos hardly break a sweat pulling 10 cars up the helix, other locos need a helper. I realize you didn’t say the grade was on a helix, but this should give you some idea whether or not 2.6 is too steep.
The grade will be a 29’ run from staging tracks 9" below the main layout no helix the locos are a cab forward a big boy a gas turbine a DD40AX 6 and 4 axle diesels and 2 F7 ABBA consists all powered units a 2-8-8-2 and 4-8-4 steam engine hopefully these will be able to make the grade Thanks for all the good info Martin
My HO layout is a bit tight so I have a 2.4 % grade to get ab over and under folded dogbone. First loco is Genesis GP9 which handles 3-4 freight cars per axle or about 10-12 cars. A little 2-6-0 can pull 3 or more small passenger cars. So I’m pk with that. I usually consist 2 or more locos so it’s workable for me. If doing again I’d try to stay away from 3% but it depends on what you plan to do.
Ouch! Your Cab Forward scares me. A stock Rivarossi Cab Forward has a problem hauling a half dozen box cars full of birds in flight on level track. A stock Rivarossi is doing good to pull it’s tender up my 3½% grades. I remotored my Rivarossis and added 10 ounces of weight and they do pretty good. My SD40-2 have added weight too, they have pound and a half Cary E7 shells.
A stock Athearn SD40-2 does good as is, they will pull 20 or so cars easily. GPs don’t do as good as the six axle locomotives on steep grades even with added weight.
I had a Bowser Big Boy and it didn’t have any problems at all, it was the most powerful locomotive I had. Lots of weight and lots of wheels.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
I have a section of track with a 2.6% grade. It is a full circle ( with some straight sections ) as the track loops back over itself. The circle has 24" radius curves.
Most of my rolling stock is weighted. The maximum workable train length is 34 units including the engines. The length is dictated by the reversing loops.
I can pull the train up the grade with 3 Atlas Trainmasters or 4 Stewart/Kato F units.
I have used a 5 unit consist of Stewart/Kato F units to pull 62 pieces of rolling stock around my layout. This is a real pain as the train has to be broken into shorter sections to use the reverse loops and none of the sidings are long enough to hold the entire train. Even with a turning ‘Y’ long enough to hold all 5 engines, it is a pain. But was fun doing it anyway.
South Penn
Gidday Martin, if you have a long enough plank I would suggest that you lay some temporary track upon it, set your required incline, and try each of your locomotives with the cars you would like them to pull to see if they “make the grade”.
Note: when you install your grade on the layout, make sure that you allow for transitions between the flat and the grade.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
I blew up your Avatar and it looks like SP4294 in the California Railroad Museum so you must be a SP Guy too.
If you’re an SP Guy what’s with the BNSF FAN thing?[:)]
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, Californi
Mel, while you are discussing Cab Forwards, I am an SP fan too - albiet 1970’s and 1980’s because I lived in California from around age 7 to 24 between 1966 and 1984). I bought a 3rd run Intermouantain AC10 Cab Forward last month cause I’ve been wanting to have a steam engine in HO for some time and my wife kindly encouraged me to pick one up (with sound too).
My present layout has a 2.9% grade from staging up to the main level and back down again. How do you think it would do in terms of pulling average cars? You might wonder - why don’t you try it? Due to having to remedate water damage to the some of the floor and drywall, the layout has two sections removed for another month or so while I work on restoration.
@mcddhawk,
I had a garage layout with 2.5% grades and two Atlas GP9’s could pull about 20 average cars upgrade - any more than that and the wheels would begin slipping. In fact if the train was stopped on the grade with 20 cars, the wheels would likely slip a bit before it started moving. As others have mentioned, much depends on the loco’s tractive power (weight etc.) vs. the cars it pulls (how much they weigh, how free rolling they are etc.).
Hello RRMEL I grew up in the Chicago area my grandpa worked for the CB&Q and my uncle worked the ATSF switching yards so i was always on trains as a child the Superchief El Capitan Zepher etc, my grandfather worked on steam engines so i have a cab forward and big boy (hold your hat) in ATSF what if fantasy schemes i also have a DD40AX in ATSF fantasy paint yellow bonnet And yes that is the Sacramento Railroad Museum as I now live in Lakewood Ca also the bigboy is Athearn and the cabforward is Intermountain
Did Riverossi or another company paint Cab Forwards in ATSF or was that a custom job?
I visited the Sacramento Museum a couple times, including 1991 Railfair when many steam engines visited.
Although I run a mountain RR which on the prototype had 4% mainline grades and up to 8% on branches. I pretty much stick to 2.5% as a rule on the layout. There are just a few spots with steeper grades by intent and they definitely serve the purpose of restricting operations.
One thing that’s important to note is that 2.5% is steep enough to obviously be a grade visually. You need not worry about 2.6% looking like it’s going uphill, it’ll be obvious.
Goes to show how little I know about narrow gauge - 8% [:P] Crazy!
Jim,
That was on the Silverton Northern line from Eureka up to Animas Forks. A single loco typically handled two cars…but they both may have been MTs.
This is an image from the Denver Public Library’s Western History Collection of the famous SN snowshed that didn’t survive the first slide into it when winter really got going good. It’s somewhat mislabeled as being on what is now the Million Dollar Highway, which is actually US 550 between Silverton and Ouray. This road is a county road and you can get between the two towns on it, but only with 4WD…
Snow shed and old County Road, San Juan County now Million Dollar Highway
Unfortunately guys I don’t have any experience with any other Cab Forwards except the Rivarossi. I never had the cash on hand to go any other route early on. I got my first Rivarossi back in 1989 new and was very disappointed in it’s pulling power. Like I said it didn’t do well on my 3½% grades, actually they don’t do very well even on level track.
Because of a very old fantasy (John Allen) I built my mountain layout as best as I could in the amount of space available thus ending up with steep grades and holding my minimum mainline radius to 24”.
I wanted a Rivarossi Cab Forward from having ridden in the real thing in the early 50s, my 14th birthday gift from our neighbor that worked for the SP. That ride hooked me on SP steam and the early fifties era.
Over the years I bought a bunch of basket case Rivarossi articulateds and restored them to like new condition. In the early 2000s I discovered rare Earth magnet motors and remotored one of my restored locomotives and added 10 ounces of weight. WOW did that mak
I’m modeling in N scale and use only steam power, most mallets locomotives.
My maximum grade on my Maclau River are 2.5% on sthraigt track; on curves which are minimum 20", its go on a maximum 1.5%, this allow me to use 19 cars whith cabosse trains on grade whith one loco.
Don’t know for HO but beleive its similar.
[:D]Hello Rio Grand the locos are all customized
You be able to pull rough 35% of # of cars on a level load. For example if you train can pull 100 cars on a flat suface on a 2.6% grade will yield you 35 cars you can pull. At 2% you can roughly pull 50% of your trains.maximum on a level surface.