I seem to recall that back in the late 70’s/early 80’s there was a club that set the world record for the longest model train. I remember reading about it in one of the model railroad magazines but the The Model Train Magazine Index draws a blank on the topic.
If I recall correctly, I think it was The Model Railroad Club, Inc. of Union,NJ that set the record.
Again going on memory, they set the record with around 525 2 bay Atheran hopper cars with Atlas SD-35’s as power. Something like it took 15 locos or more to move this massive train!
I was at a train show at Raritan Center NJ last year and there was a model rr club with 220 cars on a modular layout in I think N scale. Was really cool might have been Union Model N scale or somthing. Dont know if this helps. Joe A.
My record is 100 coal cars with caboose. Took it around layout about 3 or 4 times got nervus and stopped had a witness also, he couldn’t believe it. I pull up to 75 cars several times during open house because it looks realy cool and it is neet when a visitor has to wait for train to pass before they can raise the lift up section to enter.
I’ve seen 135 4-bay BNSF coal hoppers before…but guys…we gotta set one rule:
ORE CARS DO NOT COUNT…(I’ve run almost 200 ore cars at a time before…the total length was only the equivalent of MAYBE 45 or 50 heavyweight passenger coaches)…if anyone is interested, it ran smooth as glass at high speed; it also shattered like glass during high-speed cornering…thank god they landed on shag carpet…
Funny, but I’ve never even thought about such a thing. I did however get in one of my odd moods and put all of my freight cars on my layout several months ago to the point that the front loco was only an inch or two from the caboose, and left it that way for a week or so until I got tired of it.
During the County Fair we had one member hook up 4 diesels pulling about 85 or 90 3bay hoopers. The train went the whole length of the main line on the upper level. He made it around once; the second time around the train started coming apart with coupler failure in a couple of places. Looked cool, but no other train could run on that line as he was moving kinda slow.
The longest I have run is 43 box cars behind a single Rivarossi Big Boy, Challenger, Allegheny (all HO scale older Athearn B Box and Roundhouse cars), the longest I’ve seen is 73 cars behind a single Trix Big Boy (my brother’s) without wheel spin or bogging down.
In the earlier part of 2005, a club somewhere in the US was advertising an attempt to construct the longest model train in, I believe, G scale to see if they could get it entered into the Guiness Book of World Records. They were asking for donations of rolling stock or money. I haven’t heard any more about their efforts and whether or not they were successful. Their advertisements may have been in Garden Railways magazine.
nkpmikado, you are correct. I cannot remember the exact amount of cars but they did use Atlas SD-35s and 2 bay hoppers. The engines were dispersed throughout the train as helpers/pushers. I remember that Atlas made a big to do about it in their advertising campaign for awhile after that happened. If I remember correctly, it was all Norfolk & Western and touted as the longest train, model or otherwise ever.
[2c] nkpmikado587, continuing a bit off the thread:
I believe MR(not in review section) had a piece about BLI demonstrating its N&W A Class articulated at a Maryland(?) show pulling 165 cars. I assume they were hopper cars.
Hmm, if true 15 N&W A Class locos would theoretically be able to pull 2,475 cars. I can envision all kinds of subclasses to a “record” in Guiness Book:
Longest train with most cost effective loco lashup.
Longest train with 50’ boxcars, hopper cars, passenger cars, etc.
Longest train with whatever cars running up a 1%, 2%, 3% grade.
Longest train run on a non-club layout.
Longest train run without blowing out the local utility’s substation.
Longest train run on an analog layout, longest -------on a DCC layout, etc, etc
Based upon some of the “world records” posted in Guiness the above variations on longest train are well within their sanctioning parameters. Union, NJ club may have missed being the first with an “official” record.