: >
: > I will get some more light so I can take a proper video, but you get : > the idea: I like running long trains over bridges and stuff. Here you : > see a 9F with a coal train of around 50 trucks, and an A3 pulling 14 : > coaches. Oh, and an N2 on the branch (the girder bridge in the : > background) with a single coach. : >
: > I can run these into the loops concealed in the backscene so that a : > variety of movements are possible. And there's plenty of shunting to : > do, of course. : : Very impressive, Guy. The 4' platforms on my 8' x 6' layout can barely : accommodate 5 Gresley or Stanier coaches.
That's all my local outer suburban station could accommodate when I lived close to the main line out of (London) Kings Cross, so quite prototypical if your layout is in effect a loop with 'off stage' storage.
: : Not to be picky, but weren't TPOs marshalled at the front of the train so : that unsuspecting passengers leaning out of the window wouldn't get : whacked by a dangling mailbag? Or am I completely out to lunch?
I *think* you might be out to lunch, all the film I've seen of TPO's picking up from line side seems to suggest the bags are hung outside of the normal area of lean [1]. What would happen if the on-train mail staff missed the pick-up, and in any case would it have been acceptable to risk train and passenger by reducing the loading gauge?
[1] and if they are leaning that far out they risk being hit by signal posts, bridge supports etc.
: : By the way, CN freight trains that pass through my town daily have up to : 160 bogie freight cars hauled by 3 locos (2 up front and one in the : middle), and are approximately 2 miles in length (about 66' in N scale).
...and they wonder why the USA and Can. have above average instances of people trying to beat the on coming train across the grade crossing...