I was running my modern deisel engine when it dawned on me that i had no idea wat speeds i should be running it any help? its modern, skinny low nose i think gp? its roadname is BNSF and i am modeling open country
thanks in advance for the help
I hope somebody can validate this for me, because I am not 100% positive, but it seems freight rarely gets above 60 mph. If you are using a GP unit, which seem to be used more for switching and yard work, an even lower speed would probably be best. Goodluck.
wait i think i have my engines mixed up my engine is the kind you might see on a cross-country haul with a 100 car train.
I’m not an expert, but this sounds like a SD series locomotive. What does the box say, out of curiosity’s sake? Still, I’d stick to a 60 mph max speed. Slower looks better, especially if you have a small layout. You may also want to check out the prototype info section.
How many axles does your engine have? If it’s four, it’s a GP. If it’s six, it’s an SD.
A DC engine (SD60, SD40, SD50, GP38, GP40, C30-7, etc) has a minimum speed of about 8 mph with a train and normal the overspeed is set somewhere between 70 and 75.
Dave H.
it has 2 trucks with 4 wheels each
Alright, then you probably have a GP. The only other thing a 4-axle BNSF diesel could be is a DASH 8-40B. Here are links to a couple pictures, so you can know what the differences are.[:D]
GP38, http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=220697&nseq=4
8-40B, http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=173965&nseq=23
A trains speed will be dictated by the railroad’s rulebook. It will usually state between mile marker so and so and mile marker so and so that a train can run at a given speed set by the rulebook. There are also restricted speeds dictated by the signals the engineer recieves form the signal targets for things like going thru a turnout or following a train ahead of it. Some cities also dictate what speed a train can travel. For example here where i live in Houston, a train cannot travel over 10 MPH anywhere within city limits.
For modeling purposes it’s easy to tell how fast your train is going. Mark off a foot of track. If the train travels between the foot in 2 seconds your going 50 mph. 3 seconds, 40 mph, 4 seconds 30 mph, 5 seconds, 20 mph and 6 seconds, 10 mph. This is a rough estimate but saves the headache of getting out the calculator and doing the “how fast does a real train travel in 60 seconds” calculation divided by 87…chuck
Morning CW,
I really hope your math is a bit off, or I’m running my trains too fast. I believe a scale mile in HO is aproximately 60 feet. So if you travel that one foot in one second, you are going about 60 feet or one scale mile in one minute, or about 60 scale miles an hour. I hope I don’t have to reset all my decoders… [:O]
Good Morning CW
I just calculated one foot in two seconds as 30mph, but I’ve only had one cup of coffee this morning. [:)]
Wayne
cwclark,
I have to say that I find a city speed limit to be rather unusual in the extreme. Railroads are regulated at the State and Federal level, not at the Local level as it would interfere with interstate commerce. Imagine if every town set their own speed limits on RR’s throughout the USA… (shudder). Everything would be 10mph or lower, and you just know that every grade crossing would be a stop and protect crossing for the RR. The national economy would grind to a halt. [:p]
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
it doesnt look like either actually
its made by walthers trainline
the number on the side of the cab is 3820
hope this helps a bit
We are fortunate in HO scale that speed is easy to figure roughly, because 60 mPH = 88 feet/second. HO scale is 1/87 which is close enough for all except nitpickers. so we can use the following for say two 40’ boxcars, or a pile of ties and a pole or bush that is 12" away: 1 sec=60, 2 sec= 30, 3 sec =20, 4 sec=15, 5 sec= 12, 6 sec=10, 8 sec= 7 1/2, 10 sec= 6, 12 sec=5, 15sec=4, 20 sec=3. anything else figure 60 divided by x seconds per real foot travelled. jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
I just looked it up. It’s Walther’s Trainline GP9M in BNSF Pumkin Scheme, road #3820. I’d link to it, but don’t know how.
I hope this may be of some help. I got this info from TRAINS magazine. Correct me if my info is inaccurate.
Modern EMD and GE hood freight locomotives that are built for Class 1 North American railroads (such as BNSF) are “usually” geared for a maximum speed of 70 mph. However, you’ll rarely see an American freight train at that speed today as much more fuel is consumed at those engine rpms.
Since there’s high density of traffic on mainlines today, frequent stops/delays are the norm, so 70mph running is impractical in most cases. The majority of long haul freight trains run at maximum speeds of 60 mph.
There are excepetions. There are a few “hot shot” intermodals trains that will run at 70mph on designated lines. For these trains, there usually a batch or pool of locomotives equipped with the gear ratios that permit the higher speed runs with less of a major impact on fuel consumption. Union Pacific has or had a batch of locomotives for just such a service.
Four axle units, especially EMDs, can take off faster than their longer six axle brethren. Rio Grande’s famous short and fast “Rail Blazer” freight runs almost always used 4 axle EMD Geeps because of their “get up and accelerate” abilities.
Freight trains did run faster in the past. The Santa Fe Super C of the early 1970s ran at 70mph, however I read an article where locomotive engineers pushed that train to 85mph. That was impressive!
On distance travelled in a time frame, from MR many years ago and applied to my own layout, in HO, the number or inches travelled in 5 seconds is the number of scale miles per hour. Therefore as someone here quite rightly said, 1 foot in 12 seconds is the same as 30 inches in 5 seconds = 30 smph.
I have a more detailed explanation on my website and a method of tracking scale speed using markers.
http://www.xdford.digitalzones.com/modelrr10.htm
Most modern locomotives cannot maintain a low speed because of their gearing so as someone else made the point about 7 mph is about the minimum a loco can maintain light engine is about5-8mph depending on its horsepower. An engine will travel slower under load while overcoming its own inertia and that of its train. Up to about 70mph is usually within reason for a train as you describe!
Good luck and let me know how you get on!
Regards from down under
Trevor
On distance travelled in a time frame, from MR many years ago and applied to my own layout, in HO, the number or inches travelled in 5 seconds is the number of scale miles per hour. Therefore as someone here quite rightly said, 1 foot in 12 seconds is the same as 30 inches in 5 seconds = 30 smph.
Huh? I foot in 12 seconds = 1 inch/second. 30 inches in 5 seconds = 6 inch/second. How are they the same? 1 inch/second is actually about 5 scale mph in HO.
Andre
Well they will run slow and very nicely at that.
I unload unit coal trains for a living and SD70’s and AC4400’s and ES44AC’s all run for an 8 hour shift at less than .38 mph pulling the train thru the dumper smooth enough to spot each car within + or _ 4" for all 125 cars.
This is done with the slow speed switch enabled. A neat feature on all of em. Set it for 0.38mph and thats what ya get automactically every time you put the reverser in forward and throttle in 1.
They are not geared. They use electricity to drive a variable electric tractive motor that is within its range infininitly variable it seems.
DOUBLEJK,
Actually, YES they do have gears, there is a gear set with a smaller gear on the traction motor and a larger gear on the axle on each axle. There are various combinations available, depending on the use, and maximum speed intended for the locomotive. The gear ratios are fixed and require a drop table to change, it is not something done on a whim and the gearing is not variable like a car or truck transmission. But there are gears between the traction motors and the axles, which give I believe roughly a 4:1 reduction. I am not positive, but I believe that one combination that I have read of was a 15 tooth traction motor gear and a 61 or 62 tooth axle gear. Maybe Railway Man will chime in with more accurate info, he is an EXCELLENT source on the 1:1 scale equipment.
Doug