Train length ?

[traindaddy1]

Just curious: What is the longest freight train that your layout can handle and what is the longest freight train you've seen in real life?  (ie # of cars) As always, many thanks.

[csxt30]

Great question !!  I can handle trains that look good with 12 cars or so on my layout. Have 72 " curves & 50 feet or so in the loops. Now I've seen real trains that are in excess of 2 miles in length. Those will be the container trains. They may say there are only 30 cars in it but some are articulateds & may be 5 cars that are only counted as one car. Typical coal trains are a 100 TO A 120 cars . Though we have run as many as 165 car coal trains !

Thanks, John 

[phillyreading]

The longest freight train that I can run is 25 cars long, post war Lionel 6476 or equivalant with a single Williams GP-9 diesel.

In real life the longest train I have seen here in south Florida was 160 cars long with three SD-70 diesel locomotives on FEC(Florida East Coast Railway). The reason for long freight trains down here is because they go to the sea ports to pickup container cars, or to deliver new autos to distribution areas. 

CSXt30, sounds like a sand train down here that go to cement plants with 120 cars or so, Trinity 100 ton hoppers.

Lee F.

[Anonymous]

My curves are only O48, so my trains are maybe 6-8 passanger cars or 10 freight cars.

My layout is only 6' X10', but it takes up half my living room from October until March!! My wife is GREAT!

Don't always count real trains but the coal trains I did count were over 100 cars long.

[jefelectric]

At the present I have a 27 car hopper train on the layout pulled by a PRR M1a steamer, with a PRR SD9 in midtrain and a PRR caboose trailing behind.  Combination of Atlas, Kline & Lionel hoppers with MTH motive power, K-line caboose.

I've seen many 100+ car real trains, I lose interest in counting at that point.

[rogruth]

I was able to pull 42 mixed size freight cars on 42" diameter curves .The 43rd made them derail on the curves.

[Anonymous]

I dont know. After 15 cars I quit counting. I dont know numbers that high.

Kidding aside, I think 10-20 is plenty. I did start around 60+ once, the slack needed over a foot to run out before the engines dug in. I would not want to drive such a slinky toy up and down hills though.

[otftch]

I run a fifteen car passeger train pulled by either GM E-3's or Alco PA's.Lionel short passenger cars and MTh A-B-A railkings.Sometimes by K-line FA'S A-B-B-A(two powered).

                                                                                        Ed

[Anonymous]

Now I've seen real trains that are in excess of 2 miles in length. Those will be the container trains. ... Typical coal trains are a 100 TO A 120 cars . Though we have run as many as 165 car coal trains !  

When I lived in Indiana, it was nothing to see a Norfolk Southern consist running over a mile, if you were in the right spot you could see the whole thing running across the open wheat fields, one LONG line sliding across the land.  Really cool sight. 

As for my layout, well I can only run 4 cars, but that's because I only have 4 cars!  LOL, but thats about to change with a very specific UPS shipment. 

[Anonymous]

on the current setup i have which is temporoary and 027 curves i can run 13 before they wont go around the curves. My williams will pull alot more. but till my larger  curves get here im stuck with 13....

 

as far as largest train i once counted 169 that was about a month ago

[traindaddy1]

MANY THANKS TO ALL

Most of you really got me beat!  My space limits me to eight.  I remember as a youngster, stuck at a crossing gate, counting to 111.    Thanks again.

 

[Anonymous]

 specific UPS shipment. 

Cool! 

I'm waiting for my UPS engine (gp38)and caboose to arrive, but Lionel keeps pushing the date back!

SORRY

[spankybird]

Here is a pic of 17 cars from our Christmas Open House.

This week we recieved a donation of 2 ZW transformers, so we will be able to try a longer train.

 

[palallin]

Prototype train length is often dictated by the length of the shortest passing siding on the route.  For example, here int he Cuba Sub on the old Frisco main, the longest Been Nuthin' Since Frisco train allowed is about 6000 feet since the shortest siding on the sub is a bit over 6000 feet long.

[cnw1995]

Usually one - the trolley  - or sometimes two. I have enough freight cars though to run a train with 16 cars which is all I have - I could go longer - even on 027 curves - because I rubber-band the couplers together. I don't see many more long freights on the Harvard sub - just 'the Sandman' of a few dozen hoppers - or a long auto-rack (SUV racks) which is usually only 20 or so. The longest passenger consist (on Metra) is 12 cars with 2 F40s. Looks just like a model - especially at night.

[phillyreading]

In Stuart FL FEC will run a train up to two & a half miles long as the siding is about two & six/tenths miles long.  Sometimes you can see an FEC waiting for a Norfolk Southern to pass on it's way to Miami FL.   CSX over by Indiantown FL has run five diesel locomotives together, looked like two GP-38's and three SD-45's, don't recall how many freight cars or the length of the train.   Amtrac runs through Indiantown FL on CSX tracks, sometimes two diesel locomotives, PH40's, and 14 passenger cars. Have tried to run alongside Amtrac a couple of times from Okeechobee FL to West Palm Beach on highway 710, Amtrac is running close to 80 MPH or better.

On a previuos layout I was able to run 35 post war quad hoppers, Lehigh Valley #'s 6436, 64361 and 643625, with two Williams SD-45's pulling the train.  I tried for 37 but the train derailed on my 042 curves.

Lee F.

[ChiefEagles]

Think I can run about 27 to 30 cars, caboose and three engines and they will disapear into the tunnel and not be coming out the other side at the same time.

[Anonymous]

My outer loop is 072 curves and is approx. 70 feet of track.  I have successfully pulled 25 cars (that's all I have right now), a caboose with three MTH locomotives. 

As a little boy I remember counting cars on freight trains at RR crossings.  I don't remember the longest. But this was when it was hard to drive 40-50 miles and not have a major RR crossing and a major highway meet.  I would sit in the backseat and count the cars as they roared past.  My grandparents lived in Cleveland, Texas and we lived near Tyler.  We would pass through towns like Jacksonville, Lufkin and almost always have to stop for a train.  It was great.

I actually took an extended lunch break a few weeks ago and drove down to BNSF/UP joint line in Sedalia, CO hoping to see some long coal trains.  I did see one BNSF train moving south bound with 3 locomotives and 22 cars.  They were pulling a mix of lumber cars, tank cars and some box cars.  Then I had a burger at the Sedalia Grill, best burger in Colorado. 

Jerry

 

[jimsrpo]

My layout can handle trains of well over 50 cars, but I seldom run more than 20 or 25 in most trains.  I read somewhere, and I believe it, that any train longer than the width of the observer's view will seem long.  In O gauge, that is about 12 cars on my layout.  In the smaller scales such as HO, you need over 25 cars to create the same impression.

As far as the prototype is concerned, I spent the first 2 years of my life in Astoria, Queens, New York and could see the approach to the Hellgate Bridge from my bedroom window.  My father and I would count freight cars every evening.  Trains were consistently in the 85 to 110 car range.  Of course, in those days (late 40's), most cars were 40 ft in length.  My father was very proud of my counting ability at that age.  Of course, he also doomed me to be a train nut for the rest of my life, which actually has turned out to be just fine now that I think about it.  It's interesting that I have no recollection whatsover of those early years of my life except for the trains.  I can still picture those tuscan red boxcars and the distinctive concrete work on the bridge approach.  So my earliest recollection of any kind is of a train!

 Jim Policastro

[Anonymous]

Think I can run about 27 to 30 cars, caboose and three engines and they will disapear into the tunnel and not be coming out the other side at the same time.

 

im really impressed with your tunnel you got, i think its real cool. when i expand to a larger layout i will have to go threw a 12 ft wall section which will be cool.

[Prairietype]

My Illinois Central-2363 pulled 15 with ease through O-72 curves, but the train pulled over through an O-22 circuit. This might not happen with a carefully thought out sequence of cars from heaviest at the head to lightest at the rear. On the level grade it didn't seem to have any trouble pulling that number. I think that the 15 cars made for a pretty long train for the scale of the layout. Mine is 43 feet end to end and I can't see it all anyway. A train 5-10 cars in length looks right to me and looks like a lot of local trains that I used to see as a kid.

 

 

[phillyreading]

The only short trains that I can remember seeing where I grew up were the Bee Line Express by Reading Lines(frieght division of Reading Railroad).

Lee F.

[sir james I]

57 MPC cars. Used two Lionel Trainmasters, One in front other in the middle. I think one would have pulled it but why risk damage. The only thing about the longest real train I remember was in the early fiftys. It was a coal train and there where pictures in the newspaper. People still went to watch trains in those days.

[canoncityxp]

ChiefEagles : 

 Your response reminded me of my grandfathers 0-27 empire.  In one corner, the main used to enter a short 2-3ft tunnel for the 90* turn within a small mountain  Later, after negotiating ROW rights with Grams, he punched 2 holes through the cinderblocks to extend the main another 20 linear ft within the storeage room without altering the portals or scenery.

  One of his biggest thrills was to have new guests focus on 12-15ft long trains that would eventually roar down the back wall only to be completely consummed by a lump of paper mache the size of a laundry basket.  It was amazing how long it took some people to figure out that there was NOT a magical helix hidden inside.

And to all of the O gaugers out there, I profusely appologize for my talking Gramps into converting to N gauge when I was 16 (1970).  God, I surely do miss that 0-27 layout.

[ChiefEagles]

Think I can run about 27 to 30 cars, caboose and three engines and they will disapear into the tunnel and not be coming out the other side at the same time.

 

im really impressed with your tunnel you got, i think its real cool. when i expand to a larger layout i will have to go threw a 12 ft wall section which will be cool.

Thanks Zekie.  Wife's idea.  She now denies it.   Before I started in the big room, she said expand into the walkin attic.  Don't think she really thought I'd go through the wall.  Now I am trying to get Jim A to do the same as he has a great place to do that.  John F did the same and his is great.  Making those trains disapear is the best part.

[kpolak]

I usually run 8 cars.  I have a very small layout.

I went to see a large layout in Commerce Twp., MI and they had (4) Atlas SD-40's pulling 300 Atlas hoppers.  Yup 300.

Ridiculous, yes, but I guess it brings in the crowds.  They unhooked the cars so I could feel the weight, and it fely like about 20 pounds of pull.

Kurt