Hi everyone! I wanted to comment on something I saw in a post here and also an article in MRP 2008. We are referring to how long a train you should run. I admit I like them to be a good legnth, and in N scale I can get away with it somewhat. I can run up to a 22 car train on my 6 X 3 layout before the lead engines are also the pushers. But I have found you have to vary the trains…in other words I use a lot of different types of cars and not too many solid blocks of them. I usually operate a large freight like this and the other train I have is an intermodal which I can pull it off with easily too. A shorter train is a nice change occasionally too.
Don’t know if this subject has been touched on much recently but would just like to see what opinions you have out there. Thanks.
I’m probably in the minority running 1920’s steam, but I am typically in the 3 -5 car length plus a bobber cabbose. My loco fleet is small in size so I think it’s more appropriate.
The desired length of train should be a BIG part of your layout planning. Desired train length directly impacts:
length of passing sidings. You can reasonably run one train longer than your passing sidings, but all the others must be passing siding length or less to avoid becoming major bottlenecks.
length of staging tracks. If staging tracks are not train length or longer, then they are not going to very useful for staging.
length of yard arrival/departure tracks. A train longer than the arrival/departure track is going to tie the yard and adjoining main up until it can be broken down or depart.
length of at least one yard classification track and drill track. While you can get away with these being less than a train length it will slow yard operations and significantly reduce yard efficiency.
distance between towns. Many model railroaders don’t like to see trains in 2 towns at the same time. A rule of thumb is that distance between towns is at least 1.5 train lengths.
maximum grade. Particularly in the smaller scales where rolling friction is more significant, model locomotives are more limited on how much they can pull up a given grade.
Train length indirectly impacts:
minimum curve radius. More conservative minimum curve radii in proportion to the length of rolling stock is very beneficial for the reliability (lack of derailments and string lining) of longer trains.
choice of motive power. Big engines are used by the prototype to pull longer trains. Big engines require bigger minimum radii, bigger turntables and engine houses, and increase train length by themselves.
For the above reasons, normal longest train length is a key parameter I use in layout planning. If designing for somebody else, I would insist on agreement on longest train length before going beyond the conceptual stage.
It’s not how long your train is, it’s how you handle the throttle. [:)]
(and brake, and switches, and paperwork…)
I run trains of up to 8 cars, which seems pretty long on my RR, and is enough to cover all the local switching.
This size of train is fun to run by myself. A 50-car local freight would cost me much more in equipment and maintenance. Furthermore, I think that if I were operating it by myself, the switching would either be no more fun, as I’d be doing the same work with cuts of 2-4 instead of single cars, or become tedious and repetitive - a job. Bridge traffic, too, does pretty much the same thing whether it’s a three-car interurban freight or a 100-car mainline express.
I think, therefore, that for most purposes it’s better that a train should seem long than that it actually be so. Layout design has a lot to do with this. Bring the trains into the foreground, and allow them less space, and they seem bigger.
Well, I have a medium sized layout (27 x 16 feet HO). I like the look of 20-25 car freights on the main lines, but I also run six car freights and switchers with less. I run a four car passenger train and a single car version. I built my hidden staging to handle 30+ cars. BTW the whirrr of so many metal wheels at speed is kind of musical.
On the mountain line typical trains are five or six cars using smaller steam. Sometimes it’s just one and occasionally something twice as long behind a heavy engine. Lot of scene dividers do help.
I think it’s all about what looks good on YOUR layout and what seems right to YOU. There are so many variables (covered nicely above). One size does not fit all.
The layout I’m designing, and will probably spend the better part of my life working on, is based around a 25-30 car maximum length for freight trains (figuring the average car length is 50’-60’.)
I arrived at this based on first how big a layout I want to have, which is fairly large and then a standard selective compression ratio for unit trains. I figured that to my eye a 4:1 ratio works, so for every four cars on a prototype train there is one on mine.
For example, the CP runs rather short unit coal trains through the Milwaukee area, usually only around 80 cars or less pulled by a single AC4400CW or SD60. On my layout this train would be represented by the engine pulling 20 cars. Personally I believe shorter consists on model railroads make the layout look larger too. Trains should be long enough to look big and propper but short enough to make the length of the mainline on the layout look bigger than it really is too.
For my locals I’m planning on being around 10 cars as then the switching does not become overpowering to the rest of the operation. Remember in real life a local can set out a string of many cars for a given industry. By reducing this number of cars, but still keeping the operation looking realistic enough to fool the mind one is making the entire layout look larger again. Instead of picking up 10 boxcars of beer from the brewery stop, the local only picks up half that number or less, still looks impressive but keeps the train length shorter.
Also I’m planning on making commuter rail one of the biggest parts of layout operation so I’ve worked out a different system for the lengths of the commuter rakes, but I still follow the idea of keeping the lengths managable. A standard rush hour rake would be 4 cars long (3 coaches and a CCU.) Mid day trains will be shorter of cours probably with just one or two coaches and a CCU. Rush hour express commuter trains will feature a bar car instead of one of the coaches.
A major considderation for any passenger operations are the lengths of the platforms at stations. Remember, a station’s platform should be as long as the longest train that will serve the station. With 3 or 4 stations on a large double decked layout sounds reasonable but it’s still a challenge to fit two 5 car platforms on each station while still making the lengths of the main line run look realistic enough.
Broadly, there are two kinds of model railroaders and this decidely factors into the size of the trains they operate. There are the “runners”, whose goal is mainly to create lengthy, supposedly long distance trains to navigate their layouts, generally in an endless fashion without purpose. Then there are “operators” who attempt to replicate prototypical, often more local action and in the main run shorter trains. The silliest thing is to see just how long a train you can make up that will make half a circuit of your layout without derailment…and then make a big deal out of how many cars you’ve pulled (it’s generally an n-scaler or newbie thing).
It also weighs into the equation heavily just how large your pike is. On a typical 12x12 layout, a 40 car train looks absurd to most and, as has been pointed out in the pages of MR for decades, only serves to decrease the apparent size of your pike. Such trains can also very easily prove a problem in finding space in limited-sized yards, as well as creating passing siding problems out on the main. However, on a basement-filling empire, such trains might look reasonably appropriate, at least operating between large division yards.
That said, if operating your layout in a realistic, prototypical fashion, trains should be scaled to fit their supposed purpose/job. On an average-sized layout, whereas yard-to-yard movements might include trains of 15-25 cars, any locals or peddlers would generally be smaller, particularly for steam era or branchline operations, unless serving some specific major industry (like coal, steel, or mining).
With three decks in a basement space 28 ft by 35 ft, you might think that some long trains could be run. However, I am more into proto operations, and the railroad is designed for it. First, there are no loops, the railroad is point to point, with 5 different staging areas.
The longest mainline run is the ATSF’s old Enid Dist. in Oklahoma running from the mainline at Guthrie, 45 miles to Enid, and then another 60 miles or so to Kiowa KS. This is a heavy grain hauling line during harvest with short passing tracks and 30 mph track speed. So I run grain trains from west to east made up of covered hoppers, usually about 20 cars per train, two units. When they reach Guthrie, they are on mainline to Oklahoma City and staging.
So the Enid district used (I am modeling 1989) fleeting to move loaded and empty grain trains. Two or three grain trains for Texas are staged in Enid yard. As soon as traffic for Enid from Guthrie has cleared,the grain trains are run one behind the other to Guthrie. Empty trains coming up from Texas are held on the main around Guthrie until the loaded trains are past Guthrie, then the empty trains run to Enid. Makes an interesting sight to see.
I grew up on the Enid district, my dad was a Santa Fe switch engineer, and I worked summers during college as a yard clerk.
I guess I am the sort of modeler you would approve of. Although I do run N scale, which you apparently disdain, I prefer operating my 72" x 15" freight yard layout, assembling and breaking down trains and sending them out to staging. “Trains” are 6-8 cars long. That’s plenty for me.
But I understand that there are other modelers who just like to watch trains run through the scenery. Some of these like the thought of “longer is better .” That’s their thing.
Some folks don’t care to operate AT ALL. They just like to build beautiful detailed layouts. Some seem to just like to design layouts, always searching for the “perfect” one - or at least perfect for the design constraints.
All of these folks are enjoying this wonderful hobby we share. They are not less intelligent, less clever, or less sophisticated than I am. Many have skills I can admire. All are in it for fun. To demean them with sarcasm and a superior tone would be suggesting that my way was somehow “better” just because it’s my way. Trying to impose one set of aesthetic values on a fun activity can only drive people away from the hobby. What is to be gained by that?
I’ll paraphrase the best comment I’ve seen on how to do this hobby, with an apology to the originator, whose name escapes me: “If you’re not having fun, you’re not doing it right. And if you are having fun, don’t let anyone else tell you you’re doing it wrong.”
Can I run longer trains with shorter cars? I bin leaning toward the twenties ersa on my pike lately and those shorty overton cars make a nice little train at 5-8 cars. However the two villages on my layout don’t warrant that much traffic unless there’s a gold or lumber boom on. Rumor has it that a sawmill will be built in the near future that will employ at least 50 guys.A carload of girls with an older women showed up just last evening and took up rooms at the Gold Dust Inn.The baggage car on that last train unloaded about ten cases of the good stuff. Hank down at the Gold Dust must be expecting some business.Hope the revenuers don’t catch him.
Two weeks ago I was at a local train club’s open house ( I’ll not name names), anyhow they were running I think 4 maybe 5 trains on the layout. The layout is roughly 35’ x 22’ it is a very nice layout, with plenty of action. Theres a frieght yard probably 7 to 10 tracks, theres a “downtown” with a huge passenger station, theres plenty of mountains and bridges I just love it its the perfect size in my opinion.
There was however something last week that bothered me, they were running an extremely long train at least 60-70 cars with two cab forward steamers. Now long trains are nice but; you need ALOT of space. This club has a crossover connected by a bridge that has to be raised and lowered to allow visitors to get from the front part of the layout to the rear, everytime this train went over the bridge it held up pedestrian traffic and after a while it became annoying. There was one member who was working the frieght yard with and old steamer and then eventually with and old diesel switcher. I had more enjoyment watching this switching operation than watching the other trains going around the rest of the layout.
THe A&N has been up and running for a year. The design was 8 cars max for peddler freights and transfer freights, running from Ashley to Nanticoke then broken down for East Nanticoke was 25 cars. The guys that meet and run the railroad found that the 8 or shorter train ws more fun than the transfer. The breakdown of the lrager train would take the whole 3 hour session. The main line is 750 ft the towns on a 4:1 fast clock are between 15 and 28 min. apart.
To the contrary. I consider n just as acceptible as ho. However, from a great many years of attending train shows, I’ve noted a truly inordinate number of n-scalers who revel in displaying a series of simple ovals that sit on bare plywood and upon which they have running two or three 50+ car, virtually nose-to-tail, trains. To talk with them, you’d think they’d accomplished something amazing with such a setup. I’m afraid that the concept is lost on me.
Right on. I’d like to see more of this at open houses or show displays. There’s a DCC dealer (I think that’s what they’re in) who sets up a switching yard module at the local shows, and it always draws attention, even, shockingly, from the nonmodelgeek public. I’m not sure what a single switch engine shuffling cars has to do with the merits of DCC, but it certainly shows the merits of real operation. People are always claiming that they’ll have constant derailments. I’m thinking that a few derailments won’t hurt if the action is fun enough, and anyway if the track is that bad then they really should fix it.
At times, operation isn’t everything. I agree with CNJ that there are runners and there are operators, but most of us have some of both. I like to run trains in a realistic way, picking up cars and dropping them off, but sometimes I to put together a marker-chaser and watch it thread through the trackwork. An amusing game I have found is to take my Lima 0-4-0 and my Tyco Plymouth and put a car on each, then run them at breakneck speed around the track. Half the layout is single-track and the other half has a long passing siding. The tricky part is that they run at slightly different warp speeds, and the two tracks have different lengths, so you have to work the switches carefully to avoid collisions. It’s madness, and it sure isn’t my main reason for building the layout, but it sure flares off the excess stress.
I think that, for some, the whole rationale for going to N scale IS just to run long trains. I have no idea how much tweaking is required to achieve this. Perhaps it IS an accomplishment, although it’s a challenge that doesn’t appeal to me. Still, my own aesthetic favors the crowded, constricted feeling of an urban yard, which I find I can simulate more readily in N than in HO. So maybe my considerations and theirs aren’t too different…
I like long trains (35-45) of 50’ cars with at least 3 SD units on the front. My prototype KCS runs a lot of unit coal and some unit grain trains. My HO sale layout will eventually be around the walls of a large (30’ x 60’) basement. Right now I have a 24’ x 12’ modular “plywood pacific” oval layout set up which I moved from my apartment to our home. I am using the oval layout to expirment with train size, passing sidings and construction skills. I continue to construct new modules and expand the layout a few pieces at a time. Right now I am constructing a large modular section staging yard to store the unit trains.