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How do you know if your train might too long? (more added)

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Posted by Guilford Guy on Monday, September 3, 2007 11:25 PM
Remote control units has a tendency to do that...

Alex

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Posted by Alex V. on Monday, September 3, 2007 11:30 PM
What, exactly, happened?
Alex - Engineer, brakeman, conductor, hostler, railfan, railroad historian, and model railroader
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Posted by cudaken on Monday, September 3, 2007 11:51 PM

Your train is to long if you can read all the postings on this thread and have yet to see the caboose! 

 Your train is to long if you have to use a passing line for the engine so the caboose does not get hit by the engine.

 Your train is to long if all the engines you want are made and delivred before you see your caboose!

 Your train is to long if you think about running the short line around your yard?

 Your train is to long if you are thinking about using the 70 amp battery car charger as a booster!

 Your train is to long if your wife gives up on trying to count the number of rolling stock you have on the bench.

 You have to many Rolling Stock and Engines when you have to pull half of them so you can run a train!

 I guess I don't read 1/2 off the postings, I have missed the trolls postings and that is fine with me.

  To many train Ken               

I hate Rust

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Posted by METRO on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 12:13 AM

If your fresh switch crew ends their shift before
they get to the end of the first cut, your train is too long (and your yard might be too)

Cheers!

~METRO 

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Posted by Semper Vaporo on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 12:27 AM

Your train is too long when Walthers has to go out of business because you bought them all.

 

Semper Vaporo

Pkgs.

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Posted by jeffers_mz on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 2:48 AM
 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?

 

Yes, only deeper.

That picture or one very much like that gave me the idea.

In the case of the pic I saw, teenage vandals broke into the train at night, fired the diesel, locked the brakes and it just sat there spinning the wheels till someone noticed it the next day.

Pretty crappy thing to do if you ask me, and since I saw the pic, wheelspin on the 5% grade here bothers me a lot more than it used to.

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Posted by jeffers_mz on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 2:50 AM
 cudaken wrote:

 Your train is to long if you are thinking about using the 70 amp battery car charger as a booster!

              

 

Hmmmm...this sounds suspiciously specific...

 

:-)

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Posted by cudaken on Tuesday, September 4, 2007 11:56 PM

 Hum, would it work?Big Smile [:D] I have 3 of them.

      Cuda Ken

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Posted by twcenterprises on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 3:20 AM
 jeffers_mz wrote:
 steemtrayn wrote:
 jeffers_mz wrote:

You mean like this?

Yes, only deeper.

That picture or one very much like that gave me the idea.

In the case of the pic I saw, teenage vandals broke into the train at night, fired the diesel, locked the brakes and it just sat there spinning the wheels till someone noticed it the next day.

Pretty crappy thing to do if you ask me, and since I saw the pic, wheelspin on the 5% grade here bothers me a lot more than it used to.

Ah, so that explains why only 3 axles were spinning on (presumably) a 4 axle engine.  The handbrake was (I'm assuming) still "tied down".  As I'm told, the handbrake only "ties down" one axle.

Don't RR's lock up the loco's at night?  Or at least lock the controls somehow?  (Oh, wait, you said they "broke in".  Never mind.)

Brad 

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Posted by MAbruce on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 10:20 AM

When the lights in the neighborhood dim as you increase the throttle (and you model in N-scale), then perhaps the train is too long.

When you're running on the huge Springfield N-Trak layout, and you see your loco consist appear soon after the caboose passes by - why then you have room for a few more cars on the train!  Hey, what can I say, the rules change on N-Trak layouts...  Mischief [:-,]

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 10:31 AM

If your locomotive is a steamer, but by the time you get to the end of the train the caboose has been replaced by a Fred, your train might be too long.

If you invite Werner Heisenberg over to an operating session, your train might be too long, but nobody can be certain.

If you need a Fred on a bridal gown, her train might be too long.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by DigitalGriffin on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 10:43 AM

Good thread Chip.  There are some real funny ones in here.   

As someone from my local club said, "Any thing less than 150 cars is a local."  Laugh [(-D]

If you grew a beard by the time you connected your last rolling stock, your train might be too long.

If your accelerated clock needs to run slower than real time to disconnect all your cars, your train might be too long. 

If you have to call an electrician to install new amp service in the breaker box for boosters, your train might be too long.  (Sadly I'm close to doing this.)

If your train takes 1 minutes to accelerate and decelerate in DCC and accel vars 2 and 3 are 0, your train might be too long.

If Kadee creates a new titanium coupler just for you, your train might be too long.

If you write the manufacturer to tell them to ramp up production of a particular car so you can add more, your train might be too long.  (I'm looking at your branchline blueprint series)

BTW: My C&O George Washington is up to 15 cars, each about a foot long.  For a passenger train, that's huge!

Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions

Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!

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Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, September 5, 2007 11:44 AM

Qoute 

 

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.

 End qoute

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Posted by hiawatha101 on Thursday, September 6, 2007 9:29 PM
If there's a new 1949 Mercury at the station your train left from and a new 1961 Impala at the station it just arrived at, your train might be too long.
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Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, September 6, 2007 10:01 PM

 

  I don't remember if I heard it on the radio or my Mother singing it. It wasin the late 40s.

 

  " The longest train I ever saw, was comeing from Joe Johnson's coal mine. The engine passed at half past two, the caboose came by at nine"

 

  Perhaps I've dated myself.

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Posted by steemtrayn on Thursday, September 6, 2007 10:16 PM

If you spit out the cab window while going over a trestle, and, on the return trip you can still see your spit going down, then the trestle is too high.

 

Oh, wait...wrong thread.Sign - Oops [#oops]

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Posted by trainnut57 on Friday, September 7, 2007 11:18 AM

SoapBox [soapbox]

If your first car unhooks from the locomotive during startup, your train mught be a tad to long.Laugh [(-D]

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Posted by secondhandmodeler on Friday, September 7, 2007 11:28 AM
If you can read an entire 'weekend photo fights' before your train passes by, you just wasted an hour of your life. Oh, I mean your train may be too long!Whistling [:-^]
Corey
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Posted by Guilford Guy on Friday, September 7, 2007 2:42 PM
 steemtrayn wrote:

If you spit out the cab window while going over a trestle, and, on the return trip you can still see your spit going down, then the trestle is too high.

 

Oh, wait...wrong thread.Sign - Oops [#oops]

Hmm, means you have awfully good vision. 

Alex

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, September 7, 2007 2:44 PM
Yeah!Laugh [(-D]
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Posted by nscaler711 on Friday, September 7, 2007 4:52 PM
your train may be too long if you notice your caboose is missing off the end of your train and your engines are where the caboose used to be!

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Posted by ENGINEER BOBBY D on Friday, September 7, 2007 5:10 PM
A GOOD TRAIN CAN NEVER BE TOO LONG!  Smile,Wink, & Grin [swg]
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Posted by trainboyH16-44 on Friday, September 7, 2007 5:28 PM
Your train might be too long if the slack is longer than your longest siding...

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Posted by NeO6874 on Friday, September 7, 2007 7:21 PM

if the train is led by a 4-4-0 and 40' cars, and end up with 85' autoracks and a FRED... it might be a bit long..

-Dan

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Posted by mikesmowers on Friday, September 7, 2007 7:25 PM
   Lots of humerous answers, That's good.   Was wondering. What's a FRED? Seen it several times here on the forums but still I am it the dark.     Mike
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Posted by arkansasrailfan on Friday, September 7, 2007 8:08 PM
Flashing Rear End Device.


You know your train is too long when it takes 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 years for the slack to run out. ( that's the number "google", and yes, it is real.)( missed some zeros)

you know your train is too long when the local power substaion MELTS.

you know your train is too long when one of your tank cars rip in to pieces from too much stress
(it really happened on the real thing, just look in last months TRAINS)

you know your train is too long when your power grinds it's way all through the benchwork.

you know your train is too long when the slack runs in and you have a 100000000000000000000000000000000000 googleplex car pile up

this thread is the most hilarous (ive laughed so much!!) hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahaahahahahahahaha!!!!
-Michael It's baaaacccckkkk!!!!!! www.youtube.com/user/wyomingrailfan
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Posted by nscaler711 on Friday, September 7, 2007 8:18 PM

 mikesmowers wrote:
   Lots of humerous answers, That's good.   Was wondering. What's a FRED? Seen it several times here on the forums but still I am it the dark.     Mike

A FRED is an EoT device (End Of Train) it detects air pressure lenght and tonnage of the train and it replaced the caboose all you do is attach it to the coupler and hook up the train air line to it.

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I have multiple scales now
Z, N, HO, O, and G.  

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Posted by mj5890 on Friday, September 7, 2007 9:40 PM

If you train is pulled by all of UP's big boys then your train is too long

If you have 40' wooden reefers on one the front of your train and at the end of the train the switch crew (in a difrent state) is putting the last cut of BNSF grain cars on the end and attaching the EOT,  then your trian is too long and you probably have alot of costomers waiting for some of the cargo that's in the front of the trainWink [;)]

1 BNSF 2 Amtrak 3 UP 4 everybody else I try really hard not to have to try hard at anything hard at all because that would be hard I never recommend my recommendations
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Posted by twcenterprises on Saturday, September 8, 2007 2:25 AM

Expectant Lady (about 9 months along, due any day now) to Conductor:  "How much longer until we get to our destination?"

Conductor:  "Unknown, we'll get there eventually."

Lady:  "What happens if I go into labor?"

Conductor:  You're familiar with the reputation of this train, I take it?"

Lady:  "Yes."

Conductor:  "Then you should have known not to board this train in your present condition." 

Lady:  "When I got on this train, I *wasn't* in this condition!"

Brad 

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Posted by John Busby on Saturday, September 8, 2007 3:10 AM

Hi

guys

I though it was when the loco leaves the depot and the caboose is at the next depot down the line

Old MR rule of thumb have three times Max train length between depots.

I think the person referring to the expecting lady is talking about the old Ghan train to Alice SpringsSmile,Wink, & Grin [swg]

regards John

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