What's the most cars you pull?

[ChiefEagles]

Can pull 25 to 39 scale cars + engines [usually three MU'd] without the train chasing its tail.  Can pull more but then caboose is right in front of engines.

Hey Chief,

Some of the photos you posted in the forum of your layout show it going through openings in the wall to another room.  Ever consider opening up that wall?

Jack

The room you see is a walkin attic over the kitchen.  To remove the walls would leave a walkthru closet [used mainly for gun storage] sitting in the middle of the room.  The ceiling in the other room is sloped as it is the roof to the "dormer" kitchen roof.  I like the effect of the trains disappearing into the tunnel and coming out the other side [or can be reversed and come back out the same side].  When running long trains, gives the effect of train ending.  I mainly run trains only long enough to let the caboose disappear before the engines appear on the other side.  Still pretty long trains.

Here is a photo of inside of room during construction.

  

See the round window in the room.  I boxed it off and filled with foam insulation.  Then covered it with clear plexiglass.  Now to run the Big Boy on the outer loop, I can only run it counter clockwise.  The correct this, I can remove a 3 inch section on both sides of the the two mainlines and shift the rest "south".  I now have room to do that as the Soundstop added on top is wider than the board under it.  I just run it on the inner loop which has plenty of clearance.    

[Sturgeon-Phish]

Right now I am pulling 14 gondolas on the inner loop and 6 passenger cars on the outer loop.  Could pull more but looks odd.  Year before last at the train show where we had a 8 x 24 we had 25 cars being pulled by a 293.  Earlier locos without rubber tires and the lighter locos ( 283, 303) did not have enough traction and started to slip.

Jim

[phillyreading]

I have run 27 post war Lehigh valley hoppers with one S-2 steam locomotive from Williams, any more and the train derails on the curves on my layout from too much weight on it.

Ran two Williams powered SD-45's together and had about 38 post war and modern frieght cars behind them before the engines tried to catch the caboose. This was on 042 Gargraves curves(43.5 inch radius) and with a post war 275 watt ZW.

Normally I run between 12 and 23 frieght cars on a train or up to six passneger cars with a locomotive.

Lee F.

[fifedog]

15.  Anything more and the caboose gets knocked off its bolsters.

[crip]

Four or five at the most on my 6x10. I feel anything longer would look overcrowded.

Raymans, liked your video, the mixture of colorful box cars and different freight cars with the background

music was awesome!

Mark

[laz 57]

Depends on the mood I'm in, sometimes 20.  Sometimes 25 and also will depend on the track I'm on.  My outer track is )-72 and mostly run passenger cars, so 8 at the most.  Inner has 0-54 cars.  Around my square freight and run 5-8 cars.  Last loop diagnolly across layout 10 cars max.

laz57

[RockIsland52]

Can pull 25 to 39 scale cars + engines [usually three MU'd] without the train chasing its tail.  Can pull more but then caboose is right in front of engines.

Hey Chief,

Some of the photos you posted in the forum of your layout show it going through openings in the wall to another room.  Ever consider opening up that wall?

Jack

[ChiefEagles]

Can pull 25 to 39 scale cars + engines [usually three MU'd] without the train chasing its tail.  Can pull more but then caboose is right in front of engines.

[mersenne6]

 

  Good old #16 - my largest AF C.W. will pull 4 passengers on the level - only 3 up an incline and as for #4 the minature "yard goat" one 4 wheel passenger car is the limit.

[rogruth]

I have run a train with 42 mixed cars but usually 6 to 10.

[LL675]

I usualy pull 20-25 Postwar,MPC,LTI mixed with my RK M1a.thats pretty much all my O27 curves wil handle.

[johnandjulie13]

My layout is only 6' x 9'.  I usually pull only three to four cars.  Occasionally I will put on my E8 ABA set and five passenger cars but that is as long as I will go.

John

[Wes Whitmore]

I really don't have too many cars, since most of them are made up of RTR sets.  The MTH 2-8-0 and tender will pull the 18 cars that I do have up my inclines.  Many of them are the heavy metal cars from the K-line B&O set.  Thank goodness for speed control! 

Wes

[Anonymous]

Not really sure, I have and MTH F3 A-B-A pulling 4 flats, 1 auto carrier, 2 gons, 3 tankers, 3 boxcars, and a caboose. That makes for 14 cars + 3 engines. In all that is about 1/3 the length of the outter lower mainline and I prefer to keep my trains to about 1/3 the length of the track they are running on. I could probably get 40+ cars on one main, but I don't think I have that many cars.

[jmkk]

Longest - 65 cars. 40 postwar LV hoppers, 10 Mpc Highcubes, 6 Mpc tank cars, 2 postwar gons,6 empty flats and a caboose. Main line loops are approx. 90 ft.

Averaage -  20-25

 Jason

[traindaddy1]

Oh, about 80 to a 100................BUT, only in my dreams.    I have a small layout with only three main tracks.   I usually run a 3 car passenger commuter line and two 8 car Postwar freight lines. 

PS In my HO days, the most I can remember pulling was @ 30.  (I had a lot more room then but my engines could not handle the upgrades)    

[sir james I]

I have one train with all scale cars that is about 25 cars long. the rest I like about 10/12.

The longest one I ran was 58 6464 type boxcars I had a Lionel trainmaster on the lead and another in the middle of the train. It ran without any derailments.

[raymans]

I like running anywhere from 12-25 cars and up to 4 trains at a time (2 on each main) 

this video shows some

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1p0vnH1ZjVw

[ben10ben]

I love running long trains, but my current layout(roughly 4x10) limits me pretty well in this regard. Right now, I'm running a 12 car postwar train, pulled by a Postwar 675 with a tender and a 2032 with its dummy. This train is about half the total length of track on that loop, so it really is bordering on too big. 8-10 seems to be about right, and I've run as many as 16 without getting too much of the "chasing the caboose" look.

As I said, though, this is with traditionally sized cars. 5-7 seems to be about right for scale cars. Of course, that's about how many scale cars I have, so I wouldn't know if anything longer would look out of place 

I long for the days when I'll have a layout large enough for 30, 40, or 50 car trains. 

[Jumijo]

We have a small layout, so a 14 car train looks long enough. But right now we have two 9 car freight trains running. Sometimes we run a 9 car passenger train through town on the Jumijo. That's long!

Jim 

[trainsfan]

How long are your trains that you usually run on your layout?  Any really long trains?