MR Product Reviews --

[dknelson]

The July issue of MR has several product reviews which complain, rightly, of too high scale speeds.
But I wonder if from time to time MR could do a further test that might provide useful information. That is, they give the fastest speed running without load, but how often do we run an engine light like that? And then they give the maximum load in terms of number of freight cars that can be pulled, and presumably that is tested at 12 volts, but as most of us know, maximum scale speed drops under load -- so it would be interesting to know that if an engine runs at 100 scale mph running light, and that same engine can pull 20 cars, what is the top scale speed when pulling the 20 cars? That is the more probable top speed that we need to know about.
And this is not something a formula can tell you because there are too reasons for excessive speed: either the motor has a weak magnet (meaning it will not pull many cars) or it has gearing that results in excessive speed. A strong motor plus speedy gearing might be significantly slower under maximum load. (Some people add a magnet to a weak magnet but it has to be done right.)

Dave Nelson