With an oval layout it is easy to calculate the total run in inches for one lap
So scale speed can be caluated for the time it takes for a lap
I like mine to run at 25-40 Scale MPH
I run freight drags and one Fan Fare old timer passenger so that keeps me happy
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
~G4
19 Years old, modeling the Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Cascade Railroad of Western Washington in 1927 in 6X6 feet.
LOL! That's a good answer!
- Harry
Depends on the train... A coal drag will usually be down on its knees climbing a heavy grade. A hot shot Alpha Jet will move along at a more robust pace.
Scale speedometers and what not are overkill. I just eyeball it.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Hi folks,
I am a member of a group of mrr´s building a modular layout. We have quite a number of public shows each yera, where we built up line having a scale length of 6 - 8 miles. We run on a timetable using a fast clock. As a narrow gauge line, the speed is limited to 20 scale mph, the timetable being calculated for that speed. Only very few of us are able to run their train at a reasonable speed - usually, it is either way too fast or too slow, causing the dispatcher to get a big headache in trying to coordinate the 9 trains along the line.
Keeping scale speed is a challenge!
They run as fast as a mad snake. I have no intention of letting the train crew relax, thinking they are on some kind of break or other.
Bruce
I thought trains ran pretty slow until I saw this video with the link below. Maybe when they are running light and need to do a lot of work in a day, they put the handle up a few more notches. Look at the video of the switch engine at around 0.40 minutues into the video, when he passes the crossing both times.
http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=5295
Do any of you run your trains like this video below? Ha, Ha, Ha....
http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=926
wm3798 Depends on the train... A coal drag will usually be down on its knees climbing a heavy grade. A hot shot Alpha Jet will move along at a more robust pace. Scale speedometers and what not are overkill. I just eyeball it. Lee
Yeah, but you know us engineers, we like to tinker with things, just to see if we can make them work. I am going to try the bicycle speedometer trick on a flat car, just for grins. Then I might try the flaming soap suds, like on the Mythbusters show. YouTube has some neat experiments, not to get too far off of the subject at hand........
Remember, you are never too old to have a happy childhood!
Here is a handy guide that is "close enough"! I have all 40 foot cars, which makes it easy as they are 6 inches long, so 2 cars=1 foot.
Actual 60 miles per hour = 88 feet per second, HO scale is 1:87 so close enough is 1 foot per second = 60 mph.
so for 1 foot (2 cars) to pass by anything:
2 sec = 30 mph, 3 sec = 20 mph, 4 sec = 15 mph, 5 sec = 12 mph, 6 sec = 10 mph, 8 sec = 7 1/2 mph,
12 sec - 5 mph
Easy to jot down on a card and eventually you will know them all. John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
johncolley Here is a handy guide that is "close enough"! I have all 40 foot cars, which makes it easy as they are 6 inches long, so 2 cars=1 foot. Actual 60 miles per hour = 88 feet per second, HO scale is 1:87 so close enough is 1 foot per second = 60 mph. so for 1 foot (2 cars) to pass by anything: 2 sec = 30 mph, 3 sec = 20 mph, 4 sec = 15 mph, 5 sec = 12 mph, 6 sec = 10 mph, 8 sec = 7 1/2 mph, 12 sec - 5 mph Easy to jot down on a card and eventually you will know them all. John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
Actually, this works for any scale, including the prototype. If it takes 12 seconds for 2 40ft cars to pass a particular point, the train is doing 5 MPH.
Which also explains why scale speeds become much harder in the smaller scales. Waiting in your car at a crossing, it does not seem unreasonable for 2 40ft cars to take 3 seconds to go past - train is at 20 MPH. On the other hand, having 2 40ft cars take 3 seconds to pass a switchstand in N seems pretty slow. And trying to slow the train enough so it takes 12 seconds for those 2 N scale boxcars to pass the switchstand in the yard lead is agonizing. But yard switching is supposed to be done at 5 MPH.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
Hansel2. How does the trains speed relate to the Fast Clock?
It is miles per HOUR. So say we have one scale mile of track. A train running at 1 smph in real time would have to take a real real hour (60 real minutes) to cover that scale mile of track. A train running on a fast clock of say 12:1 would have to cover that same scale mile of track in only 5 real minutes in order to be moving the same "speed" of 1 smph.
A fast clock "speeds" everything up by the ratio of the clock.
wjstixHansel2. How does the trains speed relate to the Fast Clock?Strictly speaking I don't think it does. The time it takes to go a scale mile isn't really affected by a Fast Clock.
The fast clock just sort of creates an illusion that points A and B are farther apart than they really are, because it takes say 12 fast minutes to get from A to B instead of the 2 minutes it actually takes (if you're using a 6 to 1 fast clock ratio).
Left on my own I will run around 20 sMPH and if I am feeling frisiky, up to around 40 sMPH.
However, most of my running is on a layout that runs schedules with a fast clock. In order to match the schedules, I need to run in the 15-20 sMPH range.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
wjstix Hansel 2. How does the trains speed relate to the Fast Clock? Strictly speaking I don't think it does. The time it takes to go a scale mile isn't really affected by a Fast Clock. The fast clock just sort of creates an illusion that points A and B are farther apart than they really are, because it takes say 12 fast minutes to get from A to B instead of the 2 minutes it actually takes (if you're using a 6 to 1 fast clock ratio).
Hansel 2. How does the trains speed relate to the Fast Clock?
2. How does the trains speed relate to the Fast Clock?
Strictly speaking I don't think it does. The time it takes to go a scale mile isn't really affected by a Fast Clock. The fast clock just sort of creates an illusion that points A and B are farther apart than they really are, because it takes say 12 fast minutes to get from A to B instead of the 2 minutes it actually takes (if you're using a 6 to 1 fast clock ratio).
A fast clock should be used in conjunction with shortened distance-measuring indicators - in my case, I use a 5:1 clock and a SKIL (shortened kilometer) of 2.5 meters, 1/5th the actual length of a scale (1:80) kilometer in HOj. The actual scale speed is still 1:80 of the speed of the 1:1 prototype, and doesn't vary with the fast time ratio.
As for the speeds I run, like all of my modeling practice, I take my guidance from my prototype. Straight track speeds are:
Actual track speed is reduced by the presence of sharp curves, which restrict the speed to a clearly-marked 40kph over much of the visible route. On hidden track the speed is held to straight-track maximum, even though higher speeds could be allowed.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Since most of the Emerald, Leemer & Southern is on light rail we only do 30 sMPH---thank you very much
As for you speed demons out there---
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
wedudler I like crawling switchers. You need good running engines and track without dead spots, frogs. I've limited the top speed with the decoder. At the branchline I run also slowly. This way the distance seems longer. And this is a unit train at grade. Wolfgang
I like crawling switchers. You need good running engines and track without dead spots, frogs. I've limited the top speed with the decoder.
At the branchline I run also slowly. This way the distance seems longer.
And this is a unit train at grade.
Wolfgang
Cool switcher. Who makes it/what kind is it?
Operating one's trains at anything much above the scale speed their full-sized counterparts would be run at under a given situation turns a scale model railroad into a Lionel train set.
Unfortunately, many folks today seem to have this Lionel mentality when it comes to their HO trains. Not that long ago I visited a large, well done HO layout that in appearance impressed me. However, when the owner turned the trains on any impression that it was a miniature of the prototype vanished as the trains went around the layout at speeds probably in excess of 100mph...as if it were a kid's Lionel layout from the 50's and this was Christmas morning! Needless to say, any illusion of reality was completely lost immediately and I didn't stay very long.
Since my own layout represents a branchline servicing a large, but somewhat off the beaten track urban area, all my trains operate at under a scale 40mph. There's no need for me to actually measure their speeds instrumentally as I go by the concept of when you think they are running at the right speed...lower the speed setting just a little more.
CNJ831
mmmm--I concur with what JohnCNJ831 said. My branchline operation is such that anything running over scale 50mph is going way overboard. Some of my spurs, for example, were constructed with warbled sections so that we have scale restricted speeds of 15mph. I'm looking for realistic operations here---not just toy playing
I'm with the last 2. I'm not sure how fast I run but it's on the slower side. I tend to eyeball the rolling stock passing trying to match what I see at local RR crossings
Springfield PA
88 mph, I like my trains to travel time........
But realistically I set a curve for max speed on all my engines to limit the operators from running a coal train at passenger speeds
One of the great things about DCC is the ability to set vmax. When the Nieces and Nephews are visiting I turn Vmax down about 30 percent to save me the headache for them to keep the speeds lower.
At, or as near as I can get, to prototypical speeds. I try to remember it's not a slot car track..
Jarrell
HanselHow fast or slow do you run your trains. Sometimes I like to see my switchers crawl, while other times I like to see my freights go fast. I know how to do the math to figure out scale speed, I am an engineer, but I was wondering how other folks run their trains and if anyone bothers to actually measure the scale speed of their trains?
How fast or slow do you run your trains. Sometimes I like to see my switchers crawl, while other times I like to see my freights go fast. I know how to do the math to figure out scale speed, I am an engineer, but I was wondering how other folks run their trains and if anyone bothers to actually measure the scale speed of their trains?
Forgive me if I posted this already, this thread's been around a while...but IIRC an HO 30" R curve would be sharp enough in the prototype that trains would be limited to around 20 MPH. In my mind that's part of why trains look more realistic going slowly on the layout.
CNJ831Unfortunately, many folks today seem to have this Lionel mentality when it comes to [...] trains.
You know what's sad though, we have that same problem at ITM, where we're modeling 1:1 scale...
In general, I have two trains I run "full tilt boogie" One is a Bachmann Shay, doing a whopping 17mph (close enough) with a train, the other is a Model Power ICE train, who's protoype really does 150+. Kids love it, but I only run the train when the mainliens are clear, csuse I've seen it slide past the station. I've got two powerecd locos though, so I'm not surprised she'll scoot.
The rest I try to eyebll, or judge how short it's gonna make my OPs experience, nd go from there. One thing that amazes me though. You can eyball a train from the sky and think she's about right. But if you set up video camera, which limits the amoutn of backdrop you can see, the train is actually going WAY too fast. It's perspective again.
CNJ831There's no need for me to actually measure their speeds instrumentally as I go by the concept of when you think they are running at the right speed...lower the speed setting just a little more.
-Morgan
tatansI run at speeds that look normal, not ripping around and not ultra-macro slow where it's hard to detect motion and not at "scale speed" I believe there are many factors not being applied in scale speed, resulting in very slow trains indeed. The comment I have heard at every train show is how slow the trains are moving, I'm glad to see the above forum people just moving their trains at a comfortable, reasonable, and enjoyable speed.
I run at speeds that look normal, not ripping around and not ultra-macro slow where it's hard to detect motion and not at "scale speed" I believe there are many factors not being applied in scale speed, resulting in very slow trains indeed. The comment I have heard at every train show is how slow the trains are moving, I'm glad to see the above forum people just moving their trains at a comfortable, reasonable, and enjoyable speed.
I also don't use momentum. Tends to cause accidents if you don't use it often enough and then try. It also forces the use of the emergency stop button on derailments.