this was a test run to see how much power it would take to negotiate the various grades (2%-2.5%) on my layout pulling a 30 car manifest. all the motive power i am using are katos equipped with digitrax decoders. the first test was with just the 2 SD40-2's with no success. i was surprised that the 2 SD40's couldn't pull the first grade out of the yard which is a 2.2% grade. i don't have any of my rolling stock wieghted to offical standards & some cars are equipped with metal wheels & others with plastic wheels. these could be factors of why the SD40-s couldn't do the job. i added a dash 9 to the consist.& it made a big difference. i used speed step 8 from the 128 scale. i'm not sure why it stalled near the end of the vid because it stalled right over the feeder wires for that section
your comments & input are welcome
thanks for watching
vinny...aka..bnsf6951
www.bnsf6951.blogspot.com
Just gotta have some fun... :{)
ReplyDeleteHey that looks pretty cool there my friend.
ReplyDeleteI run grades just below 2% and usually run about 10-15 cars per six axle unit on most of my trains, so sounds like you are not far out. When powering trains that are close on HP Per Ton ratios, I will try to use an old Kato unit or two, as they pull the most for my era. I dont usually concern myself with weighting of cars unless one is extremely light. The heaviest cars here are flats with resin cast lumber loads that require the additional HPPT as above.
Did I miss the article on installing the lighting for your lower levels? Looks like you used some kind of rope lighting with LEDs.
Layout is coming along pretty fast!
When is the first ops session? :)
Jeff