Im making my first incline and its rather steep (14:1), and i was wandering what is the most powerfull Hornby steam engine available to go up this gradient. (by steam i mean electirc steam locomotive).
thanks
Both the Allegheny and FEF-3 by Hornby are excellent pullers and do well on inclines. This is due in part to their rubber traction wheels. The Alegheny will have 5% grades with 50 cars in tow.
Fergie
i couldn’t find either of these engines anywhere for sale - do you know a website that might sell them or are they sold under a different name?
Do I understand you correctly that you have a 14% grade to pull on your layout? If so, assuming there’s no way to ease that grade, you’d be looking at Shay, Climax, or Heisler type geared engine to pull that steep a grade. I don’t know what the steepest prototype grade ever used that was worked by non-geared steam traction but I’ll bet 14% is close to or more than that record. Even with a Shay, you’d be lucky to get three 36’ foot box cars or a couple of ore cars up that grade. Is there some reason you must have a 14% grade?
Jim, 1/14 is what he said, which would come out to 7%.
Yes, I get 7.1429%, and that is too steep. I am unsure how well a BLI Class A with traction tires would do on that much grade.
You guys have me curious, will the model Shay locos actually crawl up grades other models can’t handle?
[C):-)] Rob
If I recall either Proto 2000 or BLI E7A/B with both powered could pull 25 cars up a 6% grade.
That was published in MR. I forget which issue.