IMHO Smaller layouts look best with 5 to 8 cars
In real RR I have seen pics of engines up to 2-8-2 pulling that small a set
I like my Mountain and Berk but think that may be too small a number especially for the Berk
Anybody see photos of Mountains with small numbers of cars
I am hoping probably in vain that the Berk might have been used in some instances
In the 1950s; N&W often used K2 & K2a Mountains to pull main line local trains; sometimes less than a half dozen cars. One reason is that they could move these trains very quickly and get into the sidings fast to clear the main line for the coal trains.
A great source of information is DVD’s of your prototype.
Was that local freight ( I hope ) or passenger
I like my Mountain and Berk but think that may be too small a number especially for the Berk
See the first half of your quote, thats all you need to be concerned with. If you want an Alco P ABBA lash-up pulling a consist of double stack autoracks with a wide vision caboose bringing up the rear with a FRED flashing on the end of it who cars. It’s your railroad you payed for it you won it run what you like and don’t be so concerned with what “looks right” The UP Challenger #3895 a fast freight locomotive was assigned to pulling a passenger trains during the end of it’s service life and as of today still pulls excursion trains. So if the prototype can use a locomotive for something it was never intended for why can’t you?
Yeah I could use the Berk for my Fanfare
I had it pulling 24 coal cars just to see the long coal train
Berks
When I lived in Truckee, CA during the late 1950’s, there was a Sparks NV-Colfax CA ‘turn’ that ran daily over Donner Pass. The consist was usually an F-series A-B or A-B-B-A pulling about 5-10 cars. At the time, I thought it was a perfect little Athearn train set consist, LOL! One time I saw it come through with a single F and four cars.
So I figure that if Southern Pacific could run a short train with a big loco combination, we sure as Heck can, LOL! [:P]
Tom [:D]
On the other hand, there was a pic in “Pacific News” taken of a single F-7 in the San Joaquin Valley with a long freight train in the late 60’s (don’t remember the car count, if any). For those of you not familiar with California, the San Joaquin Valley makes the Midwest look like helper territory. They didn’t call SP’s 2-6-0’s “Valley Malleys” for nothing.
Andre
You’re right about those “Valley Mallet’s”, Andre. I’ve got some video of one of those little devils charging up the SJ main out of Fresno with a consist that would make a Cab-Forward wince, LOL! Wow, could those little 2-6-0’s HAUL!
Tom
Seen on a prototype line that:
Ran everything to timetable.
Used one class of 2-8-2 for 90+% of their freight trains.
Routinely double-headed some timetable slots, but not others.
Had a couple of long 2% grades.
Train #1, routinely scheduled to be doubleheaded, gliding up the grade with 2 4-wheel box cars and a brake van behind the pair of D51s. It would usually have included a long cut of limestone hoppers, but the mine wasn’t producing that day.
Train #2, 45 minutes or so later. A single D51 slogging upgrade pulling its maximum, lots of stack talk and smoke as the fireman earned his pay (hand-fired loco!) Fifty-odd cars behind the tender, probably including cars which had missed their connection with Train #1 at the originating terminal. Usual car count for that timetable slot was 20-odd…
I have seen a train of 2 gons and 2 ancient passenger cars behind a 2-6-4T when the usual consist would have been a quartet of DMUs. I guess the end-of-the-line terminal was short a few cars for the day’s coal production, and the DMU couplers were incompatable with the ones on the gons…
Moral? A realistic consist is whatever the railroad’s customers need it to be, whether that’s one car behind a four-axle switcher or 150 rotary-coupler coal gons behind a quartet of EMD’s latest and greatest. As to what got put on the head end - toward the end of steam on NYC, those haughty Hudsons ended up pulling local freight!
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Sometimes too, the locomotive and train crew would be needed at the other end of the subdivision if train movements were unbalanced. They might go as only a caboose hop, but an alert yardmaster might take advantage of the opportunity to get a few cars moved onwards. (Another method was to double-head on an existing train even though it did not need the extra power.)
John
There is a photo in Signor’s book Southern Pacific’s Salt Lake Division (page 253) of a cab-forward 4-8-8-2 pulling a single box car and caboose the thirty miles from Fernley, Nevada to Sparks. The locomotive dropped all but these cars off its train at Fernley after traveling on the Modoc Line from southern Oregon. Other motive power was used to take the train further to eastern markets. This mode of operation, e.g. locomotive changes in Fernley with the locomotives’ home in Sparks, created many short trains and locomotive-only movements between Fernley and Sparks. I’m sure there were other instances like this elswhere.
Mark