Has anybody timed their trains going around the layout from start to finish besides me. I just timed my n scale and it took one hour and a half to make the trip but it took my ho scale engine only 40 minutes to make the trip. I set the engines at very slow speed,around one mile an hour and was surprised at the results. Using slower speeds sure adds to the realism. I slow them down to around 35 mph going through towns and since I have a lot of trackside buildings I use slow speeds a lot.
My layout is eye level so I always operate my trains at very slow speeds because it looks more realistic and it looks pretty cool too. I don't know the scale speed but most of the time it's just fast enough to keep them from stalling. I have never timed how long my line is because I don't use a fast clock but I'm sure it is not very long at all, just a few minutes.
When I was involved with NTRAK, me and a couple other guys used to make the trains run slowly as we could without stalling but we never timed them.
Many years ago I set a newly purchased Halmark brass Geep (N Scale) on a section of flex track to see how slowly I could run it. I made several tests. The slowest was amazing: a little over 10 minutes to go 12 inches (I was using a wrist watch to time it so not exact) That slow is boring, but I had nothing better to do at the time.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
A friend and I ran our locomtives around a scale half mile loop and timed it with a stop watch. Used the JMRI Decoder Pro speed curve to set an actual maximum speed of 70 MPH now our locomotives are all speed matched.
Subway trains of LION run 40 - 50 mph, which is way too fast for today's service, although when the SMEEs were new they were easily able to do that.
It seems to look ok to me, but I know that it is too fast. Some of my trains will not move at all unless you crank it up. I had been using 10.2 volts but some of my equiment does not work well even at that voltage. It is the newer batch of subway cars that is giving me trouble, and so now I am looking at replacing the motors with NWSL products. I will try one and then see what happens. I am prepaired, now that I know how to do it, to remotor the whole fleet if that is what it takes.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Great subject! I have seen clubs operate switching moves at "track speed" or, as I like to term it "Lionel fast" speed; very unrealistic. One time I was at a train show and there was a club from Canada that had an HO modular layout. They restricted their speeds to "yard limit", which was very impressive, very realistic. I often see videos of model railroads where the trains are traveling at a very toy-like speed, which detracts from the layout all together in my view. With what is available out there in terms of motive power, especially the newer, better powered and requiring less voltage to operate equipment, there should be a better ability to operate at closer to prototypical speeds than ever before. It also allows one to "stop and smell the scenery" that way.
I like to run mainline freights at between 30 and 35 SMPH. Anything faster just doesn't look realistic to me. I try to use prototypical speeds for switching but have found I don't have the patience so I'll usually operate in the yard and on industrial spurs at about 5 SMPH. Even with those speeds, as a lone wolf operator on a two car garage size layout I frequently do not complete a full cycle of point to point pick up and delivery in a two hour window which is about my limit for my operating session.
Marty C
I've tended to run very slow - 35-40 MPH for passenger trains, 15-20 for freight trains, 10-15 MPH for ore trains. It was easier to time trains on my old line (the continuous run mainline was almost exactly 1km), but now I can usually get a pretty good guess just by watching the train...plus I have several BLI engines that will 'speak' with the scale speed if asked.
the club layout has a short section w/ sensors that displays the speed of the train thru it. It's helped me learn to judge the speed of a train. I've gotten to the point where when I run a long freight train at what I think is close to 25 mph, that's usually around the speed the trap reports.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
At a scale 30MPH (HO=6"/sec) it will take about 32 minutes to make a complete out and back loop on my layout.
Modeling an HO gauge freelance version of the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line and the Utah Railway around 1957 in a world where Pirates from the Great Salt Lake founded Ogden, UT.
- Photo album of layout construction -
If you really want true speeds and not what looks good, find out what speed your road of choice normally ran their trains. Most real world narrow gauge trains that I model rarely hit 30 mph with much of the line's trackage in the wild listed at 10-15 mph max speeds over vast stretches. Really slow going and it looks tedious on the layout, but is a real and honest run speed.
Do your research, even on a fantasy or free lanced railroad and match your real world loco's speed to your terain vs. what it could do on a long straight-away with a typical passenger or freight. In general, the rail weight and the terain typically limit the speed far below the engine's normal max speed capability.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
Yes, slow speeds look so much better. I doublehead my HO trains so this also helps eliminate stalls, even though I only run 15 car trains. It still looks good on my 9x19 around the walls layout.
The layout is at about eye level to the average viewer, this also goes a long way towards realism. Dan
SP&S modeler, 1960's give or take a decade or two for some equipment.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SGTDUPREY?feature=guide
Gary DuPrey
N scale model railroader
Very simple to measure train speed.
http://home.cogeco.ca/~trains/rroperat.htm
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
The first MDC shay I built I got to run at a tie a min.
I haven't timed it yet, but my Athearn Big Boy will move with a train when the CVP wireless throttle is set at 1. The layout is actually a large loop with 6 passing sidings. I am beginning to see the operating possiblities of moving trains against and coming up from behind. Add to that the switching locations that would require time to occupy the main and it is going to be a lot of fun. I also love the sound of the Big Boy at slow speed.
If I want Lionel speed, I have another room for that.
I was at the Big Train Show in Ontario, CA with the On30 group I belong to. We operate very slowly.
I was looking at some of the other modular layouts, both N and HO. I thought they were running bullet trains. The fast moving trains looked ridiculous. The Free Mo guys were long and slow and looked great.
Pete Steinmetz
Dead Rail Society
www.deadrailsociety.com
On30 Modeler
Encinitas, CA
A long time ago, I was reading a "how-to" book by Lynn Westcott, and he made a comment which I'll paraphrase here because I don't remember the exact words. It was something like "Some people say HO trains are too slow, and prefer to see their Lionel/O-scale or tinplate equipment run at high speed. If you slow your HO trains down and get your eyes close to the track, you will see some of the best train-running you've ever seen!"
I don't think there's a modeler out there who had a tinplate "train set" as a kid, who didn't crank up that old transformer to the max, rocketing that tough, solid, built-for kids-to play-with loco down the straightaway towards that 27" turn at top speed, just to see if it stayed on the track. (Most times it didn't, but wasn't that the fun of it??) Later, though, as we "matured" into the "serious" modelers we are today (you know your wife, sig. other, & non-modeler friends don't believe that for a minute!), we supposedly try to be more "prototypical", and build, color, and otherwise attempt to depict the "real" railroad scene in miniature. The criterion for that realism is, in most cases, I think, in the eye of the beholder; if that eye is attached to a "serious" modeler, you'll get various degrees of comments, criticisms, and general words of advice and/or encouragement, to which you can respond in a number of different ways. The one thing I'd be willing to bet my brass on (if I had any) is that, deep down, past that determination to be prototypically correct, past that notion that all eyes in the modeling world are upon you, making sure your trains run at correct speeds, your modeled era is strictly adhered to, and the whole thing looks "real", is a little voice nagging at you at the back of your prototypical mind, just once in a while, to crank up that DCC wireless throttle to the max, and rocket that highly detailed, carefully painted hunk of remotored expensive brass down the straight, right into that maximum-radius curve you designed to be adequate for your locos at "prototypical" speed - just once - for the fun of it. Of course, you'd stop short of the curve, -wouldn't you??
Yes, slow is good; but not always, and not for everybody. (You know who you are!)
Fred Barrett