I need to gain height as quickly as possible. I’m using HO scale, and I will be using Steam Locomotives from the 1880-1900 era. I intend on having very short trains, only 4 or 5 cars. I want to do logging and mining. Gentle grades will not work for this layout. What is the greatest grade that I should attempt? What issues will I be facing, like traction, accidental uncoupling, etc. What locomotives are bad, good, or best for this layout?
You have 2 choices:
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Build a logging layout with the old steamers that creep. Having a brain-cramp and can’t remember thier name right now.
Some of them could handle up to a 10% grade, but yo’ll have to have traction tires to be able to do that on your layout. -
Limit the slope to no more than 3.5%, and even then some of your steamers will complain badly. If you can keep it down to 2.5% or less you’ll be in better shape.
To calculate grade 1% is a 1" climb in a 100" run.
Mark in Utah
Shay, Climax, Hiesler. Those are your most common geared locomotives. They could handle very steep grades.
Hey, THAT’s the one! A Shay!
Mark in Utah
Even tank engines could handle steep grades, especially if they were in the 90 ton range and up. By that I mean they had lots of weight on the drivers to apply their tractive effort to the rail. I have ridden in the cab of the Alberni Pacific 2-8-2T, a 1928 Baldwin, that indicated it was good to 9%…not too shabby for a non-geared locomotive.
HOwever, whatever you use, it will not perform like the prototype. While a proto 2-8-2T might drag 6 unloaded skeleton cars up a 9% grade, I can’t see anything less than a large brass locomotive hauling that many cars up a 9% grade on your layout. So, whatever you feel bound to do/have, make darned sure you prove the trackage by laying it in place and trying out your trains before you make permanent roadbed and secure your tracks in place. You may be in for a nasty let-down.
I went through the same “problem” when I was building my layout. I found that anything over 2.5% was a “problem” with some of my engines. I ended up testing each section as I went with trains as I expected to actually use them. I picked my worst pulling engine and coupled it to my expected train consist and tested each section to make sure that the complete train could make the grade (I also made sure that a stopped train could restart on the grade) before I glued everything down.
There is no way to predict what will really work with your equipment or to say exactly what your equipment will really pull up a grade. “Most” geared loco’s will pull a short train up a 3% grade (my Roundhouse Shay will) and “most” small engines will pull a 4-5 car train up a 2.5% grade. Actual engines and cars used will be the real limiting factor though; you need to test with your equipment.
Here is a photo of my layout under construction and the testing that I did.
Here is a FREE Grade chart
I must admit I’ve been a “tractive effort junkie.” Almost every one of my locomotives have been tweaked for additional effort. My two blue box Athearn AC4400’s have 22 ounces of lead added to each of them and together pull my 12-car coal train (real coal) up a 3% grade. Do the growl, yep, but the real guys do as well. They’re also very smooth running and can really cruise if you want them too. My pair of GP-60’s, where I’ve added about 12 ounces of lead each pull almost as well. I’ve even tweaked my Stewart F7’s with extra lead. Even with all my tweaking, I wouldn’t push my equipment past a 4% grade. My Genesis Mike just doesn’t allow me to add hardly anything to it, and is as anemicas one can get.
The only way I’d consider a steeper grade is if you had cast boilers on a shay, and modeled an old-time logging railroad that only pulled a couple of cars at a time.
Mark in Utah
In the end I will probably have a logging camp on one mountain at one end of my layout and I will probably only pull a car or two up to it. At the other end of the layout I intend on having a mine on the side of another mountain. again I’ll probably only pull a car or two to it.
My layout itself very small. The only place I could put my layout was in a space that approx 5’ x 6’. Then if take one of the corners and lop off a triangle portion that jutted out into the room too much and then lop off the opposite corner that was that was too far to reach from the front of the layout (where I just lopped off the triagle) you’ll see just how limited I am.
In effect from corner to corner the longest distance is about 8’ and from side to side, it’s more like 3’. I used some very creative cutting and splicing of the plywood base and I think as I remember the total sq. ft. of the entire layout is about 29 sq. ft. Not much for an HO layout.
Then I went to work on the software track designing program that Atas offers for free download and was able to put one large oval (kind’a folded a little at the corners to fit my space) and believe it or not put a reversing loop at each end with a 90 degree crossing in the middle. Most of all of this layout is on level grade, however portions of the reversing loop dip down in the middle of the layout. The total drop is about 1" (Main track is on top of 2 - 1" foam layers, and this portion dropped down is on one layer of 1" foam.)
My real problem is that near each end of the layout I have a turnout that will begin an going up grade. From both ends that track will curve to rear of my layout and along the back side and join together in the middle of the back. That point is where I will install two more turn out that will go one to each end of the layout where the mountain will be. They will get there by way of trestles and mountain passes etc., but in
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Have you ever thought of using switchbacks? In a switchback, a train would go up the mountain on a 2.5 or 3% grade that would end just past a turnout. The turnout would be switched to the other track and the train would back through the turnout, going up the mountain sone more in reverse until it passed another turnout, then continue going up the mountain forwards. It would keep this up until it got to it’s destination, then come down the same way. This is great fun for switching operators.
That was my first plan. However I have a very limited budget and just the basic turnout not counting any switch backs account for a minimum of seven. (my original plan called for eleven). If I can’t get the height the way I’ve talking, I’ll have to go to switchbacks. But also the more switchbacks, the more cramped the area will become (already extremely too compact). As much as I like to see lots of track and switches etc., I need to conserve track space so I have some area to do scenery.
With my budget so tight, I literally have only one turnout in place and I made plywood template of it first so I could continue to lay cork road bed and flex track. So everywhere I need a turnout, I get my template out and lay it on the roadbed and continue from there. I don’t even have a locomotive yet. I have one boxcar (and several old “junked” cars) from an old trainset I got almost thirty years ago. I use it to test the track to make sure everything will work good when I get my loco. Without the loco now, I have to be very cautious as I don’t want to finish the trackwork and then find out I can’t run a train. (I’ve got to save some money and get my loco soon!!)
My experience with geared locomotives is that 4-5% is about right. I can still haul 6+ cars even on curves (which can increase the effective grade by up to 2%). Non-geared locomotives - probably less grade would be recommended.
Also note that even if you design for say 4%, imperfections in construction may produce a nonuniform grade that might be a little higher than you planned.
The best suggestion is to test the grade on an inclined board with the kind of trains you want to run.
Marty