The Great Proto 2000 Endurance Test

Day 4 and 5. They both have been running for over 30 hours straight with no signs of any problems. I decided not to run them backwards and have added 5 more cars to each so now both are pulling 15 cars. I’m going to shut them down at 1 pm so that will be a straight 37 hours of running time with no stops and a total of 67 hours running on each. They are doing a scale 30 mph so they have travelled 2010 miles in 5 days, as of 1 pm today. Both will be back in operation at 8 pm tonight and I’m going to run them again for another full day or more. The Great Proto 2000 Endurance test continues…

I seem to remember reading somewhere that the Museum of Science and Industry wore out its first locomotives after a year of operation (10 hours a day) with the locos having covered about a million scale miles. I can’t remember the brand though.

I think your talking about Kato’s but I don’t believe they were wore out. They were given to Kato after they were done with them.

Wow! This is an interesting thread. I have a pair of first generation P2K GP7’s that I bought years ago. They spend allot of time on my main line pulling long coal drags, about 20 to 25 cars up a 2% grade. When I am at the bench working on some thing I leave it running at about 30 scale mph, the run is about 65 feet or so total. I have had these engines running between 2 to 8 hours at a time, for about 3 days a week now for about 10 years. They have had the split gear problems and are becoming noisy as they are loos engines now, but they still run great. I wonder how many hours are on them?

If you really want to test it, then purchase a loop of ez track, set it up on the floor, and let the engines run off a power pack until they die. Using this method, if they ever derail when you are not around they won’t hit the floor and ruin the experiment.

I don’t know how true this story is, but years ago I went to see Northlandz. One of the operaters in the control room told me that they had tried several brands of locos and the run of the mill Mantua diesels seemed to last the best with non stop contiuous running. I found this hard to believe, but maybe cost was a major factor also. Mantua could also have cut the best deal. The numerous trains barely pulled much, 3-6 cars and would never see the hard use and abuse we would give them on a layout w/ grades etc. A P2K, Atlas, Kato or Stewart would outperform these in my opinion, but at 3-4 times the cost. I wonder what they are using now that Mantua is gone.
Bob K.

Day 6 and 7. Well I ran them non stop from 8pm Sunday until 8 am this morning for a total of 36 hours non stop. Still no obvious signs of wear or any type of crack forming on the gears. I gave each gear a drop of oil and popped the covers back on. I’ve decided to just install the screws that hold the coupler pockets on to hold the shell on as popping the gas tank on and off all the time has weakened the tape that holds the tank on. So far they have run 103 hours in 7 days(with more to come today) at 30 mph for a total of 3090 scale miles. I’ve decided to now turn up the heat on them. At 9 am this morning they are going to run non stop for a full 2 days, maybe longer.

What the hell 135 cars !!!

Day 9. Well the GP7 had a catastrophic coupler failure sometime last night. I went down in the basement to check on them this morning and the GP7 was pushing the cars instead of pulling them. The coupler hook must have cracked somehow and broken in two. I let them run until 9 am this morning, a non stop 48 hour run with the GP7 still pushing the cars. I took them off the track, removed the shells and looked for any obvious signs of wear and still I can’t find any. Everything I own has Kadee couplers on them so I decided I might as well add them to these 2 loco’s as well. It looks like I’m going to keep them for awhile, lol. As of 9 am this morning they have been in operation for 151 hours over 9 days and have travelled 4530 miles. I put them back on at 10 am and they will now run non stop until the weekend.

This is exciting.

If the couplers were stock P2Ks, then they were pretty cheap quality plastic. So far, I’ve bought two LL Proto diesels, and replaced the couplers with Kadees because the P2K couplers were so poor. I don’t usually give such negative comments about quality, (I like and run my Tyco and 80s Bachmann diesels) but these just aren’t good couplers.

The way your writing down everything for each day is almost like a book.[:D] You could probably turn this whole test into a book when you’re done.[:D]

I must admit, I’m starting to look for this thread every time I log on the MR forums.

If it ever comes out as a book, you could call it “Hughes Huge HO Hauling Heyday”! [:D]

Please keep us updated!

I agree this is exciting waiting for the next episode to be posted. I have twelve P2K’s myself and with the exception of two coming in with broken gears I have had no problems with them. Mostly Geeps and several sets of F units.
Terry [8D]

I think we might be going to get a little old before the locos fail! Walthers might be interested in the story for advertising purposes.

You are in for a long haul! I did the same type of thing with a Proto2000 PA2 a while back. It pulled 45 cars plus 2 dummy locos around my layout for 3 weeks straight, 17 hours a day! I finally gave up and put it in freight operation, where it continues to do a superb job.

Jeffrey Wimberly, Leesville, la.

I’m out of my mind, but leave a message anyway.

[soapbox]

I agree with the comment about the couplers being cheap. Every P2K item I get comes with those McHenry plastic couplers and every one of the has broken in standard use. Now I just install Kadee #5’s and get it over with.

Jeffrey Wimberly, Leesville, La.

I’m out of my mind, but leave a message anyway.

[soapbox]

When Walthers / P2K tools a new contemporary Diesel, the Museum of Science & Industry may get to give us a longlevity test.

Keep in mind, the MSI provides routine mantainance - including wheel and brush replacements, enroute.

This does seem reminicent of David Harrison’s Chicago Museum of Science & Industry updates over on the Atlas Forum - the’ve run at least a couple sets of Kato’s (and maybe an Athearn Genesis or two) the full distance from Chicago to Seattle (and back?) in real miles.

Actually, Life-Like doesn’t use McHenrys. They make their own couplers, (called “Proto 2000 couplers”) which are plastic, but they have a Kadee type centering spring. McHenrys have the centering springs molded onto the coupler, like Bachmanns, Accurails and Katos.

Being a big LL p2K fan and owner, I hate to say this. At 6 yrs. of age (now 41) I received a diecast boiler Mantua Pacific that ran until one of the siderods wore thru at the bolt to the driver. Model Power bought Mantua and had repair parts. I added a DCC decoder and she still turns miles pulling 8 Roundhouse Harriman passenger cars. BTW using a lubricant that is not plastic compatible may cause some cracked gears, ask me how I know!