If your lead engine can couple with your caboose, your train might be too long.
If your engine smokes the Goo Gone off your track without moving, your train might be too long.
If you have to break your train to execute a reverse loop, your train might be too long.
If your six-unit coal drag trips the circuit breaker on your DCC unit going up a 1% grade, your train might be too long.
If you have to carry a shoe box to hold the car cards, your train might be too long.
If the engineer can mistake his own FRED for a stop signal, your train might be too long.
If you have to make more than 10 cuts to break it down in your yard, your train might be too long.
If your train sounds like it going 80 smph but moving like it's going 5 smph, your train might be too long.
If the Westbound CSX Extra 10 meets the Northbound NS Extra 904, and they are both pulled by the same engine, your train might be too long.
If you need to break your train into more than 3 pieces to get your engine behind your train to make a set out, your train might be too long.
If you have to lash more than 3 switchers together to get it into the yard, your train might be too long.
If your engine is smoking, and you ran out of that stuff you put in the smoke stack last week, your train might be too long.
If you fill the A/D track in more than one yard at the same time, your train might be too long.
If your passengers can board a train walk to the dining car and have lunch in the next station then walk to the front car and exit at their destination station and the train hasn't moved, your train might be too long.
If you have to perform a saw-by on yourself, your train might be too long.
If your occupancy detector won't let you into the next block becasue your train is still in it, your train might be too long.
If you have to do a manditory engine change before the caboose leaves the departure yard, your train might be too long.
If you can take on ice at more than two cities at the same time, your train might be too long.
If you can't get up a grade because you've trapped the helpers in their siding, your train might be too long.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
When you're unloading and loading passengers at one station, but the locomotive is stopped in front of the next station up the line.
When your rear-end helper loco looks like it's actually double-heading your lead loco.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
If the cost of your consist exceeds the amount your wife spends on diamonds per year, your train my be to long.
If you cant remember why a car is in the consist, even with the aid a bill card, your train may be to long.
If you have all your cars in one consist, and you own more than fifty, your train may be to long.
If you need more than a 6 engine lashup, your train may be to long.
If the engine comes out of your 15' back tunnel before the caboose goes in, your train may be to long.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Mister contrarian, front and center!
galaxy wrote: If the cost of your consist exceeds the amount your wife spends on diamonds per year, your train my be too long.
If the cost of your consist exceeds the amount your wife spends on diamonds per year, your train my be too long.
One car? (an old Athearn BB, at that.)
If you cant remember why a car is in the consist, even with the aid a bill card, your train may be too long.
Nah. Your memory's too short.
If you have all your cars in one consist, and you own more than fifty, your train may be too long.
If I put all my goods wagons into one consist, it would only be about 1/4 the length of my mainline. It would also be about eight times as long as appropriate for my prototype. It all depends on the layout.
If you need more than a 6 engine lashup, your train may be too long.
Maybe. More likely, your power supply may be inadequate.
'Taint necessarily so. It all depends on the layout and the prototype. Of course, if my Minamijima-bound train's lead motor appears at the Haruyama Tunnel portal before the brake van disappears into the portal of the Nichigeki Tunnel it might be too long (about three scale kilometers too long!) That would be the least of the problems. There's no catenary through the Haruyama Tunnel.
On the other hand----
Yup, the train might have been too long (At least, too long for the Chrysanthemum Empire!)
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with prototypical length trains)
If you have to walk 30' to get to the other end of the train, Your train is too long.
If your cars derail on a 30" radius corner, Your train might be too long.
If your train takes up at least 3 yard tracks, Your train is too long.
If your engines burn up and catch fire on straight level track, Your train is WAY too long.
My small addition.
When you run out the slack and the caboose doesn't follow because the coupler is on the roadbed, your train may be too long.
When your Alco engines are starting to smoke like real Alcos, your train might be too long.
If the cops in two different towns are threatening to give the same engineer a ticket for blocking crossings, your train might be too long (although this has really happened on the old N&W).
When ALL your industrial spurs and your yards are empty, your train might be too long.
Funny thread, Chip.
If you cant fit your loco(s) into the consist, your train may be too long.
If you can fit you loco(s) into the consist, but it takes every loco on your roster to pull it, your train may be too long.
If your train rear-ends itself, your train may be too long.
If your all metal Kadee couplers break under the weight of the cars, you train may be too long.
If your train derails on a straight section of track because the radius is too small, your train may bee too long.
If your train uses up both sides of your 2 track main line, and most of your branch line, you train may be too long.
If your local neighborhood power transformer catches fire, your train is too long.
When you wonder why you have to stop at the yard on the main because another train is leaving the same your you just left, your train is too long.
When you build a transcontinental railroad and your train gets from New York to Los Angeles in 10 seconds, your mainline is too short.
When you call your Conductor back to the caboose, he gets on the locomotive pilot for a ride back, your train might be too long, (and he may never get to the caboose either!)
If ALL of the locomotives in the consist are classified as DPUs, then your train is too long.
If the brakemen in the caboose of a train can look over their shoulder and see the whites of the engineer's eyes, then your train is too long.
Man, this is a fun post! Thanks for this, I needed a good chuckle today.
-Brandon
If the engineer sees the helper engines from train 1 and he is train 1!
If your commuter train is in hoboken and summit at the same time (thats at least 20 miles)
If you emptied your turntable tracks of locomotives and still cant get out of the yard, your train is too long.
If your the only train on the layout and you see 3 trains over the Tehachapi loop, your train is too long.
If you called for the real 3985 for pusher help, your train is too long.
If you saw 3 trains running and your running only one, your beer was too long.
If you can't uncouple from your train without coupling onto your own caboose... your train might be too long.
If you are admiring the realistic smoke coming out of your lead loco going up a 1% grade and then realize 1) it doesn't have a smoke unit, and 2) its a diesel anyway!.... your train might be too long.
If your train can block the arrival yard of your destination and the departure yard of your point of origin at the same time... your train might be too long.
If your locomotive, mid train helpers and caboose/rear end helpers are all in different time zones... your train might be too long.
-George
"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."
If you can't pull your train with a string of 15 Bowser T-1 4-4-4-4s, your train might be too long.
If your train is so heavy your engines can't pull it downhill, it might be too long.
If you can see the back of the train from the engine, and you don't have any curves in your track, your train might be too long.
That's all I've got for now.
_________________________________________________________________
If the conductor can visually check the end of train device from the cab of the lead locomotive... your train might be too long.
If a mathemetician sitting at a grade crossing looses count of the number of cars in your train as it passes by... your train might be too long.
If people waiting at a grade crossing while your train passes by, order a pizza, get it delivered and finish eating it before your train clears the grade crossing... your train might be too long.
If you have time to read all of this weekend's troll related posts before the last car of your train clears the yard... your train might be too long!
PAERR wrote: If you have time to read all of this weekend's troll related posts before the last car of your train clears the yard... your train might be too long!-George
No one has that much time.
When all 20 drivers have ground clean through the nickle steel rail, and start in on the plastic ties, your train might be too long.
When attempts to pull the train yield loud popping noises, only half the train moves, and you find Kadee #5s embedded in the wall more than twenty feet away, your train might be too long.
When the power company calls to tell you they expect you to pay for the melted windings on their 650 megawatt turbines, your train probably is too long.
When you look through the rectangular hole with brown smoking edges in your benchwork, right where your head end consist used to be, and see an identical hole through the subfloor into the crawlspace, your train used to be too long.
When the little door on your P2K GP9 slams open and your plastic engineer is sprinting away at top speed, yelling "She's gonna BLOW!", your train won't be too long for much longer.
When the space time continuum around your layout folds in on itself, past the Schwartzchild radius, and your train and layout disappear beyond the event horizon, your train may well be too long in the X'Y'Z' reference frame, but we have no way of telling that because the Lorentz Transforms break down in proximity to naked singularities.
At this point, we can invoke Hawking's virtual particle annihilation equations using the measured gamma radiation data and equivocably state that your train is probably too long.
One, any train is Too long when you try to back it up!
Two, any train is too long when it starts taking short cuts through the inside of the curves!
Three, any train is too if the shippers are complaining becuase the yardmaster holds cars in the yard until he has a "full" train's worth of tonnage.
Have fun
Alex
jeffers_mz wrote: When all 20 drivers have ground clean through the nickle steel rail, and start in on the plastic ties, your train might be too long.
You mean like this?
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
steemtrayn wrote: jeffers_mz wrote: When all 20 drivers have ground clean through the nickle steel rail, and start in on the plastic ties, your train might be too long.You mean like this?
Or this?
jeffers_mz wrote: When the little door on your P2K GP9 slams open and your plastic engineer is sprinting away at top speed, yelling "She's gonna BLOW!", your train won't be too long for much longer.