Being up late and not having anything better to do, I just put pencil to paper to see how far a model loco traveling at an average speed of 10mph would travel if it were allowed to do so continuosly without any problems, and this is what I came up with:
In 24 hours it would travel 240 miles.
In one week it would travel 1,680 miles.
In one month it would travel 6,720 miles.
In one year it would travel 80,640 miles (Around the world over 3 times…)
Of course we all know that eventually the motor, gears or something would wear out before one could ever reach these great distances, but still, I wonder just how far one could go before it died ?.
Is there a record set on the longest distance traveled by a model loco ?.
Let’s see. not counting the miles it was shipped accross the big pond, the shipping to Kadee and back for coupler conversion and several laps around the club layout just to see it run, my “Mike” has run --------------- I DUNNO !!!
I have 12 loco’s that I keep track of running time in hours on, just for fun. My 3 Kato CP AC4400CW’s only have 28 hours each on them, I run them MUed all the time and they have done 10 hour and a 8 hour non stop runs at shows on my clubs layout. I have a GO Transit Atlas GP40 that has only 38.5 hours on it with 3 non stop 8 hour runs and 1 4 hour run at shows on my clubs layout. I also keep track of 3 Proto 2000 GP9’s in ONR colours that have 96, 48 and 40 hours on them, a ONR Proto 2000 GP38-2 with only 24 hours on it and 2 Proto 2000 SD45’s in Huron Central colours with only 8 hours on them. I also have 2 Athearn Genesis SD75I in ONR colours with only 6 hours on them. I have a bunch more loco’s but I either haven’t kept track of them or they don’t have decoders installed yet.
Theres a guy named Victor Miranda on the Atlas N scale forum who’s been “road testing” some of the N scale equipment out there by doing exactly what your talking about. He’s on his second torture test now. He’s go a five foot loop and he puts five cars on a loco and lets er rip. The only down time is once a week for a quick breakdown, inspection, and lube. The first one lasted a little over two weeks I think. He did that one because it was a new design motor and he thought it was a poor one. He wanted to prove it. He’s on his second loco (a different design) now, and it seems to be doing better. I’ll post a link or two in a minute so you can read for yourself.
I believe the Chicago Museum of Science of Industry has had a few Katos run the entire 2000 some miles from the Windy City to the Rainy City. However, I doubt that was continuous run.
Dave, so they did need maintenance? And the CMSI(for lack of a better abbrieviation) presented them to Kato, not the other way around? Well, that’s sorta strange.[%-)]
All they needed was just your normal preventative maintenance, lube, oil and filter, lol and they were back on the layout running. I’m sure it was Kato that got them, strange as that sounds. I would have kept them myself. Maybe it was a publicity stunt sponsored by Kato or something.