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As far as what realistic train speeds are, it does depend on what type of cargo is being hauled, as well as the condition of the mainline. The Shinkansen Bullet Trains in Japan are built to go over 125 mph routinely, but they are run on dedicated mainlines that have extremely broad curves and little interference from other trains. An American freight train might get up to 50 to 60 mph if it is traversing easy terrain, but then up in the mountains where steep climbs and sharp curves are the norm, it'll probably drop to around 20 mph. Some freight trains carry time-conscious commodities and are run on schedules that have them overtaking all the others in order to maintain a high speed; I am thinking of the intermodal (trailer-on-flat-car) trains that Santa Fe (now BNSF) races across the desert southwest at 80 mph. To acheive the high speed, they would stack a bunch of deisels on the front end of the train, more than would ordinarily be needed to simply move the fairly light TOFC traffic. My favorite trains, long coal drags, are not time-sensitive at all, and thus tend to move at rather slow speeds, with as many cars in the train as the engines can haul. <br /> <br />Passenger trains always want to run as fast as possible, but in practical terms this rarely exceeds 100 mph on American rails. An exception might be the Northeast Corridor, where some specialized trainsets run. <br /> <br />Most older N-scale equipment is geared to have top speeds in the 150-200 mph range, which is well beyond what the real engines were capable of. Higher-quality equipment is beginning to get better, with top speeds that are closer to the rated top speeds of the prototypes. A sign of good quality in an N-scale engine is how slow you can make it run; you want it to start smoothly at close to 1 mph, right at the bottom of your throttle's range, and then top out at a realistic 80-100 mph at full throttle. If it tops out higher than this, you can always just limit your throttle, but if it doesn't start smoothly at a few scale mph, then you'll have difficulty doing switching moves and such.
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