Whats your longest train ran?

[Boyd]

Whats your longest train ran or how many cars did it have? You could include what you have seen on a club layout. I think the longest train I ran once was about 40+ cars behind my DMIR GP9 8158. It was a temporary just straight track on the floor in my moms old house. That one GP9 moved the train. I didn't get a chance to find out if it would pull 40+ cars around a layout though. Big Boy could just beat all of us as he has a monster layout.

[ChiefEagles]

Well, my basement layout was 60 feet of double line track. I had three Lionel MPC U-Boats strapped together. So I could have strung out lots of cars. I'm sure I did it but can not remember. I do know that I normally ran about 21 to 25 cars on that train. Trains too long compared to the layout do not look quite right.

[Anonymous]

Yes, especially when you see the front end nudging the back-end!

[laz 57]

My longest train is my beer train of 40 cars. I am pulling it with a Lionmaster Big Boy at times and other times with any of my Lionel dual motors. SD80 Macs in CP,CSX, Conrail, NYC 3ja, SP Atlantc or anything else that I have the Odyssey system in. Going to run 2 Williams SD80 Mac in conventional when I get them.
Laz57

[Anonymous]

Lionel M1a, with 120 scale cars

[FJ and G]

"What's your longest train ran?"

------------

About 3 days. WEnt on vacation and left it running by mistake.

[Big_Boy_4005]

I did a 50 car train on a modular club layout, back when I lived in Denver. It was done with a single postwar 2046, and all MPC cars.

It isn't easy to do long trains. They start to behave like real trains. Difficult to start, and difficult to stop, as the weight and the momentum increase. There is also the added problem of bad knuckles, and heavy cars at the back of the train. Any curve is a potential disaster. One wrong move, and you stringline the train, which often tips a bunch of cars over.

When you have a problem, you can't just slam the power off, if you have a lot of cars still running behind the engine. Emergency stops can cause the cars to pile up accordian style. Real trains behave this way when there is no break application.

If you have ever seen an airal photo of a train wreck, often the cars are layed out in a zig-zag pattern near the front of the pile. The first cars are almost stacked prependicular to the rails, receiving the brunt of the force. As the shock wave moves through the train, it disapates, possibly leaving a section of the train at the rear still on the rails.

Still want to run long trains?[swg]

[Roger Bielen]

My longest was a double Zephyr consist of 20 aluminum passanger cars pulled by an AA E8 set. No problem till I stoped at the station with the engines stopped on a curve, when I went to start I threw a traction tire. I probably should have backed up first to put some slack in the train.

[fjerome]

my lionmaster big boy is currently pulling all 19 of my reefers, my lone milk car and a caboose. i bet it would pull more, but this is long enough for my layout. especially since i originally planned to have only 6-7 car freight trains so that they would all fit on my passing sidings.

[eZAK]

So far 22 by a K-line Hudson.

laz 57,

"My longest train is my beer train of 40 cars"

Full or Empty? [;)]

[Anonymous]

hmm...don't hav much room, about 15 or so....could do more but my supply of cars is not that huge.

[laz 57]

EZAK,
They all start out full but at the end of the night they are empty .[;)][;)]
Go figure.[:D][:D][:D][:O]
Laz57

[Gorgeman]

Somewhere between 70-80 scale boxcars with 2 MTH Dash 9s
pulling it -
No longer have that wife or that basement -
I sure miss that basement !

[phillyreading]

The longest train I ran had two Williams SD45's for power and 33 Lionel or K-line frieght
cars behind it. My layout then was 8ft. X 14ft. ran the long train on my outer loop.

[Anonymous]

55 cars pulled by four MTH railking 0-8-0's

[Anonymous]

My MTH Proto-sound Hudson has 12 pass. cars, (2 sets of 6), but occasionaly when pulling all 12, sometimes the knuckles come uncoupled mid-train, even though the whole train is fairly new.

I occasionally also add my 7 frieght cars to the 12 car consist to make a 19 car train, but this just runs into trouble.....