It certainly is enlightening to hear “the common myth” of passenger trains “needing alot of space is crap.” Perhaps in “Hooterville?” I must remember this “myth” the next time I roll a six car “varnish” of Walther’s 80 ft. standard heavy weights out of the marshalling yards. Let’s see, “six engines tugging a mile long string of EVERYTHING…” would come to roughly 52 standard cars not counting the “engines.” This would be a remarkable lash-up indeed. I’m sure all readers of this Forum would be fascinated to know where, when and why such a gargantuan consist was “made up.”
I love passenger trains. It is a good idea to model passenger trains
Slim,
I was in somewhat the same spot with my lay out trying to figure out what to model. For me, it was more if an era aspect. Problem was, I kinda had a soft sopt of old steam. But, I have a 4 yr old son who enjoys trains and we enjoy going out and train watching. Problem this brought up, was that I found I was buying modern stuff that we saw . (Example, we found a really nice yardmaster at a local BNSF yard that gave us a on board tour of a Pumkin Dash 9, well the next day I had to get a engine with the Pumkin scheme) cause every time run it, we point and go “hey remember when…”
So I was torn which way to go. FInally, I said the heck with and everyone and declared its MY Railroad, I will do what I want. So now, some weeks, I have my steam on there (only one at the moment) or I am running more modern stuff so the kid and I can point, oggle and awe.
I suppose some folks might think my approach is breaking some fundamental rule about “prototyping”. But it is YOUR lay out and run what ever you feel like. No reason you couldnt go back and forth as your mood suites you. Besides, then you get to buy anything you want!
So build a passenger service, (if you are afraid maybe you might get bored with it, build a freight stock) Build in industry here and there so with the passenger service, it looks good in the back ground, and then you could use it for some opertional work.
Just some ideas.
Best Regards
John K
Eventually and inevitably it all comes down to one thing, doesn’t it Slim? “Colors are made for taste!”
Not really.
MOST home layout’s lack the space to do justice in HO. Even the combined ‘El Capitan - Super Chief went to 2 sections when they got to 16 cars.
MOST passenger trains were 6 - 12 cars . Some were 2.
55% of the layouts on this Forum are 4 X 8’s.
80’ scale Passenger cars look funny on less than 44" radius - forming an Octagonal shape.;
an 8 foot passsing siding will hold 4 85’car’s - no engines.
Most Passener cars produced have cheated on the dimesions and trucks to better get around our layout’s,.
Even our club has a 10 car limit to fit in the Passenger Depot.
Finally, i have a 24’ X 12 P/P layout and an 10 car train only moves 24 feet to get from one end to the other.
Yes, Don is right!
44" curves in HO scale & everything looks right.
Unfortunately not all of us have the space to be able to set up layouts to allow for such grand curves.
I, like most of us out there, have managed to use 22" curves & Don is right, the cars don’t look right on them.
They don’t look too bad on the one 30" curve I managed to fit in!
Fortunately, most of the curves on my 9X12 layout will be partially hidden to hide this travesty.
Walthers states on the boxes of there passenger cars that 24" is recommended.
They work great on 22" curves even at high speed.
Just my 2 cents
Gordon
[:)] Certainly, Ted, I am delighted to enlighten all.[:)]
A noted, I do extensive research on passenger operations in the U.S.
To answer and to clarify;
A suburb in the midwest is serviced by only one coach and a switcher that takes the
weekly passenger load to the next stop where it is lashed to that city’s bi-weekly bound
for a coastal metro. In the process, the passengers are dropped at a layover of two hours
while yard crews are further hooking mail,autos, produce/food,etc. to the end of this very
passenger train to save fuel costs. If you study Amtrak, you will notice this practice is
commonplace. There is an actual New York to San Francisco run that uses AMD103 and
UP helpers to cross mountain ranges. What happens is a bottleneck track occurs and two trains are lashed together headed for SanFran. This mix of train has roadrailers, passengers, hi-cubes,flats,piggybacks,autos on it. Again, fuel and time is saved by doing this. And ,yes, this completed consist is over one mile in length, with six engines.
Feel free to do your own research. A point to start is to watch the DVD “Amtrak 30” and
view the “CSX Folkston Funnel” Both will surely answer any further question.[:)]
[:0] Only 24 feet from one end to the other!? You poor ***! [}:)]
But seriously, you concider 24 feet to be a short distance? How?
I run 9 car passsenger trains on my 9 x 11 and they don’t look too bad.
I FIGURE your 9 car train using in the vacinity of 10 - 11 feet (with 85’ cars) of track length and t taking up approx half of your loop - even with 43" R cuurve potential,.
Better yet, if you increase it to 18 cars, you might have the first engine’s nose ‘sniffing’ it’s own tail.
signed Poor ***
You say you have 12 x 24 feet to work in. It don’t sound like you appreciate it.
To me, now its just me, seems like you’re bitching about having space equivilant to half a large garage. [tdn]
By the way, I am proud of my 9 x 11. I may not have 24 of travelling distance, but it is still fantstic. [^]
If your in N scale, you should have plently of room for passenger operations. Wide graceful curves, a long yard, big platforms. All of that stuff.
All I model is Passenger train service and I virtually have NO space.
I model the present era of Amtrak and what I would like to do is double the size of my layout in my room (won’t happen anytime soon if at all until I move out into my own place).
So what do I do to make it work? I prefer operating prototypical 8 and 12 car train sets but that doesn’t work right now so I reduce my consists by a half. Instead f an 8 car Regional, I’ll stage a 4 to 5 car regional. Instead of a 6 car Acela train set, I’ll use a 4 car set. My Superliner set is 1 Sleeper, 1 Diner, 1 Sightseer Lounge, 1 Coach and 1 Transition Sleeper.
Because there’s virtually no space, these compressed consists give the illusion that they are allot longer than what they really are. This is just enough to keep me somewhat satisfied.
In my opinion freight wouldn’t do much better on my layout as I would want to run freights as long as I possibly could. Granted switching operations wouldn’t require this but there’s allot more freight cars out there than passenger cars and I would want my layout to reflect that.
I could go on and on but I do have to get some work done, lol.
My 2 Cents.
How’s this for a wild idea? Model a tourist line! I once designed, and still may build, a loop to loop tourist line in N scale, loosely resembling something in Colorado, with mountains and cliffs and tunnels, but in standard guage because it’s easier and I’m not a rivet counter. Two trains could use a passing siding in the middle, similar to operation on the Cumbres and Toltec narrow guager. You could put a cave or waterfall or other tourist attraction at that point or at one end. Also at one end, cars could be shuffled around in a small yard, too, without much trouble, and you could put the servicing facilities there. You could also call it a railroad musuem preserving an old stretch of track. That way, you could have passenger cars from many different extinct roads on the same train, or you could customize them with your museum’s name. Many will think this is crazy, but I don’t. I think it would be super cool.