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[quote user="DrW"]Your formula gives funny results for grades of 1% or less. For a 1% grade, you would get the same 513 tons you give for the level track. For a 0.1% grade, you would get an astonishing 5130 tons. You might also want to consider that a level track has formally a 0% grade, and the result of a division by zero is undefined.[/quote] It works for his grades and that is good enough I think. If you want a more scientific formular to make it generally usable it can get complicated when using e.g. the prototype formulas. More usable is perhaps cars per driven axle. The La Mesa Model Railroad Club (2% uncompensated) uses 2 cars per driven axle, another modeler with 4.1% uncompensated + adjusted for curvature) uses 1.5 cars per driven axle. One can test it or one can just determine the ratio. It is a model railroad not the prototype. Regards, Volker
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