I have been testing the track on my layout before I caulk it down permanently. I was running a thirty car mixed freight around backwards and everything was great. I then added three more cars and when the train was well on its way up a long 2% grade,[:O] boom it happened. The weight of the train caused cars three,four and five behind the engine to buckle. My question is, in the real world how many cars can be pushed? Does going up a grade make a difference to the number? What are the regulations and rules regarding pushing cars?
A couple hundred if they are loads on flat, tangent track.
A huge difference.
They take up 2-4 pages of a modern special instructions plus the rules themselves. Basic rules restrict where (if any) empty or light cars can be ahead of the pushers, plus the total tonnage. Varies by territory, type of engines pushing, type of cars.
You don’t mention several details, like scale, whether cars are weighted (NMRA standard), type of couplers, track features like switches. If you want to get into physics and mechanical engineering, a lot of things come into play. I don’t think scale railroad couplers are designed to apply a lot of force through a train being pushed.
Not sure where you’d find a need to push cars up a grade in the real world, aside from a loading/unloading facility for coal, ore, or other bulk commodity like grain. Railroads used to design or assign special locomotives and/or rolling stock for unusual situations like this. Engineers and train crew would be trained in dealing with those situations, and they would probably be covered in the railroad’s rule book.
There is an outfit in central New York called Tiger Valley Lines. Its owner has a huge HO layout filling his basement, and he likes running long trains. He uses special couplers that will let him run up to 6 diesels MU’d, pulling a couple hundred cars, so the train doesn’t pull apart - traveling up or down grade.
Not sure where you’d find a need to push cars up a grade in the real world,
Try a hump yard mound to start and some mine branches in the Appalachian coal fields.I been on mine runs where we back 70-80 empty hoppers up a 1% grade for 2 miles before it level out to .05% about a mile from the mine.
True,But,I was thinking more on the reverse move not a pusher.If you want to talk pushers then we can add steam locomotives pushing against a steel frame wooden or all steel cabooses.
Just the idea of a C&O H Class shoving against a Magor caboose gives me the willies.
It happens all the time in the real world. There are long runs that must be shoved because of the track arrangement (no runaround, for example). Many of these long shoving runs are uphill at various grades.
No special rolling stock or engines needed, except perhaps a ratty old shoving platform (nowadays) or caboose to protect the longer shoves.
Thanks for the answers. Whether it is in the real world or on my HO layout, many variables must come into play. At least in the prototypical world all the tolerances have been tested. ( I hope )[:)]
Any place a downhill train is making a pick up or set out. Any time a downhill train is doubling in or out of a yard. Any place a downhill train has to make a reverse move (pick up a conductor, set out a bad order, wye a train, saw a meet, etc).