I should get my layout main line finished today monday 8-4-08. My K-Line porter stalls in Lionel 42" switches. I bought a Lionel truck with roller pickup on it to install on a trailing car so I can run wires to the Porter so it won’t stall in the switches. I possibly could put a Marx tender behind it. Otherwise I’m not sure what. Will be pulling mostly MPC era 027 cars behind it. Layout is 042 or larger curves but the main grade is about 2.0-2.5% grade.
Well, this probably isn’t a good idea, then … unless you wire the loco to the coach’s power pickups …
… but then again, I don’t think that the Porter could pull the K-Line commuter coach.
Actually, I’m not sure that the porter will pull much of a load up a 2 percent grade. When I reviewed it in the Nov 05 issue, I cited the drawbar pull as 4.7 ounces, and we could only get it to pull three or four freight cars (depending on how light they were), and we also experienced the stalling.
As said in my first post, wires will go to a power truck on the trailing car. On 048 curves it was struggling to pull much of a train. Big difference when I put the engine at the back of the train pushing it. Down the road I might buy 1 or 2 more Porters and run them together.