I expect Model Railroader to have used 10 carriages weighted to the NMRA recommended practice. If you use a more sensible passenger carriage weight of 0.47g/mm you can improve the maximum train length by about 40% or more. The 10 carriages on the flat is equivalent to only 4 NMRA weighted carriages on a 1 in 50 (5%)grade. Therefore I conclude the model out of the box tractive ability is not good enough either way. It's probably due to the model having springs on the leading and trailing trucks. Removing the springs will mean you will be able to haul scale length trains on 1 in 50 grades and curves without adding weight to the locomotive.
Terry Flynn
formatting link
HO wagon weight and locomotive tractive effort estimates
Well, the Yellowstones of the DMIR were rated at 100 plus 70-ton ore cars, ie, about 10,000 tons gross weight, at about 15 mph. The Yellowstones were actually "the largest steam locomotive ever built", not the Big Boys. (I've probably started another argument. Oh well.)
Your point about actual operations is well taken. We need more data about actual consists over actual lines. I don't doubt that the K4 could start rather more than 10 heavyweight cars, even in winter, but except during WW2, trains in the steam era were usually shorter than that. Model Railroader from time to time has run "pike-sized passenger train" articles showing passenger trains with 2, 3, or 4 cars.
BTW, a simple fix for that is to glue or somehow attach some black plastic sheet as a filler or view block dead center under the cab. I did this with the Athearn Genesis 4-6-2, and I was pleased with the results. It's not perfect, but it fills that massive void under the firebox that just shouldn't be there.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
The ruling grade on the NH's mainline, the Shore Line, was over Sharon (MA) Hill...a 0.91% grade. Other than the grades encountered perhaps, you can see that the K-4's and the I-4's were in very similar service. Having said that, I have a source in front of me, "New Haven Power", by Jack Swanberg, that says about the I-4's in the 1930's, "14 to 16 car trains were standard, especially on through PRR trains, and this under demanding conditions." This lead to the NH's order of 10 Hudsons (Class I-5) for the same service in 1937.
The New Haven also ran into two stub terminals: GCT and South Station, Boston.
The NH's premier train, the "Merchants Limited" had the following number of cars throughout it's history in the steam era: 1903 - 6, 1913 - 7, 1924 -
10, 1930 - 8, 1947 - 13. Realize that this was a day train...no sleepers, and loads were kept light to make sure the train was on time. I also have some info from a 1939 NH Passenger Train Consist book, which pre-dates road diesels on the New Haven. It shows the following: Train #10 "Bay State" 14 cars, Train 70 12 cars, Train 14 "Bostonian" 14 cars, Train
28 "Gilt Edge" 10 cars, Train 142 10 cars, etc.
Well, there's some hard info for ya' above. ;-)
That's probably too many, to be honest. Moguls usually didn't have that much power to run passenger trains in the first place. On the NH, Moguls were usually light road freight locos.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
One sort of problem that faces all of us, both the modellor & the rail enthusiast, is the difference between the real railway & the model.
The real railway was faced with natural barriers, & the railways had to overcome them to get the products through, I remember watching a great dvd on the building of the East to West line in the States & the race between the contractors, & marvelled at the way the obstacles were overcome, especially out of the Claifornia end. But, for what I have seen, most modellers tend to model flattish layouts without a great deal of grades on them.
I recent times, I notice that the helix has become popular, to allow for multi hieght layouts, & present the running with something that the real railways experienced. Over here our steepest grades (main line) were on the Blue Mountains line out of Sydney, with grades of 1:33, the loads of the 3cylinder mountain type 57-58cl were 400 tonnes, 630 tons assisted with a smaller 2-8-0. In the other direction these engines brought 1500 tons down those long grades using air & the easing of the grade in some parts to assist braking. (tests were done with 2000tons, but not brought into general operations (one cross country line had
1:30 grades)
With the 1500 ton trains, the length of these were equivelant to 30 bogie vehicles, even this would a very long train to model, & I would suggest look out of proprtion. Besides, that many heavy trains only had short lenghts anyway. Trains, need to look prototyical on a layout, & they can do that by making them up in mixes of loaded wagons & empties.
Passenger trains of the steam days, what was the reall size of them? Prior to the infernal combustion, rubber wheels taking over, our trains were many & depending on the season, could be around 12 cars, In China they regularly ran at 15 cars with a JS Mikado, today, even longer. But I think the main trains were set at a certain limit, & within the capacity of the main engine from A - B.
When we look at the real railways, especially steam, many lines had a momentum factor build in, where the train would approach the steep grade at full speed & get down to the crawling speed only near the top, but with everything going right the train made it over. How could we model this?
One other factor that has to be considered, especially with steam is the adhesion factor. This factor is dependant on, several things. The grade, weather conditions, engine condition, & load variation.
Naturally the grade is what the locomotive has the load set for, but there is usually a basis set to allow for weather conditions, on a couple of our lines, we had a grass called "umbrella grass", that at cerain times of the year, would blow with the wind, & settle on & get caught in the track. This grass was aout a foot long with many horizontal grass fingers along the top of about 8-12inches. This grass was very oily, even though it was considered dead. It always seemed to happen on sections of the track where there was a grade, when the locomotive ran over this stuff, the oil would be secreted onto the track, & the engine wheels.
The first train may get through, but would have trouble owing to the oily deposit on the wheels, but any train following would encounter fresh grass, & the residue left on the tracks. When it was known that this condition existed, the loads of trains were reduced or if an engine was found spare it provided assistanece over that section. Express trains were generally not affected as they had lighter loads
The condition of the engine, was a common factor, & the railways policy was that load trial trials were to be carried out by "run of the mill, everyday" tyoe engines, but this often was not the case, as engines doing load trials, were usually given attention by the fitting staff.
Wagon variation was another factor as many places loved to overload their products. Thus a theoretical 1500 ton train could often be 100 tons over the load. & this is where the adhesion factor really came into play.
I had drivers, who suspected that the train was over the prescribed load, would demand a weighbridge test, or carry on, using the sanding lever in a toggle working to prevent wheel slip. Some engines were notorious for sleeping especially the passenger engines when employed on goods trains.
I have been to China & watched the trains over Jingpeng, & listening to the QJ 2-10-2's, I consider that they were never loaded to full capacity, when I found out that they were rarelly worked with full regulator & a wider valve cut off, my suspicions were confirmed. The drivers said that working the engines like that, the engines would slip badly on the curves, impossible to keep steam & the water up to them.
Noting the amount of reverse curves etc. & the train dragging on these curves, I could understand that, & as a result, I wondered whether having the 2nd engine pushing would be better, as this would allow no drag on the train, as the last vehicle, is an engine working. Sadly this theory will never be proven, unless the QJ's in Iowa, have a way of testing it.
One thing with the MTH model, some have commented about the space over trailing truck, as someone said some styrene glued up, should improve the looks. But, as I look at tis & even on models for over here. Why do we have to accept something that really is a poor reflection of what the original looked like, especially with the amount being asked of it.
Even a clip in ash pan frame could have been supplied, as I would think that not everyone has the sharp radius trackwork, these days, that were prevelant a while back. I am looking at having nothing under
24" radius on main line, with only sidings, & branch line locomotives using the few smaller 18' points that I have, & they will be avoided if possible
Just for comparison's sake, on the New Haven's Maybrook line in 1918, the following steam engines were rated for Eastbound freights in (US) tons: L-1 = 3500 - A 2-10-2, these were the most powerful rigid locos in New England. J-2 = 2600 - A heavy 2-8-2, these were hand fired and should have got stokers J-1 = 2300 - A light 2-8-2, these were well thought of on the NH F-5 = 2200 - A 2-8-0, sort of like the Bachmann Spectrum Consolidation I-4 = 1900 - A heavy 4-6-2, normally in passenger service I-2 = 1300 - A light 4-6-2, normally in passenger service K-1b = 1300 - A 2-6-0, these were all over the NH system G-4 = 1160 - A 4-6-0, these are the ones that went to Austrailia in WWII
The Maybrook was the NH's "mountain division", with steep grades going West (those Westbound tonnage ratings are about half of the Eastbound ratings).
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
Thanks, this is the kind of information that's really useful!
By 1918, fully loaded freight cars would range from about 40 tons to about 60 tons gross weight. Assuming average gross weights of 50 tons, we get the following maximum loads for freight trains: L-1: east 70 cars, west 35 cars J-2: east 52 cars, west 26 cars J-1: east 46 cars, west 23 cars F-5: east 44 cars, west 22 cars I-4: east 38 cars, west 19 cars I-2: east 26 cars, west 13 cars K-1b: east 25 cars, west 13 cars G-4: east 23 cars, west 11 cars
Heavy weight steel passenger cars weighed about 60 tons and up. So the I-4 would rate a maximum of 32 cars eastbound, and 16 cars west; and the I-2 would rate 21 cars east and 10 or 11 cars west. I suspect that actual trains were normally 8 or so cars, with occasional additions at peak demand. Platform lengths and passenger numbers would govern actual passenger train consists; and east and west bound consists would be equal.
All very interesting but as I wrote before, you cannot equate what the prototype hauled to what we expect our models to pull.
Our models (generally) are expected to operate of steeper grades and definitely sharper curves than the prototype did. Where we consider a 1% grade fairly gentle, to the prototype this was one steep grade.
We want our heavier locos, 4-8-2, 4-8-4s, 2-10-2s etc., etc. to be able to pull 20 to 30 cars on our model railways, even up 2% grades because we don't have the room for several scale miles between sidings and grade of .25% or even .5%.
So our 1% or even 2% grades are (generally) selectively compressed prototype grades. My model railroad is set in Southern Quebec and should be generally fairly flat but because it's a model railway, and not a real one, I need a
1.75% grade out of my staging so even a 4-6-0 is expected to pull 10 or more freight cars up this grade, even if the prototype couldn't.
One has to be cautious about making assumptions and drawing conclusions about a line they are unfamiliar with. In the case of the Maybrook Line, which is the one cited here regarding east/west grades and motive power employed, passenger sevice on the line was gone prior to 1930 and before that date had been handled by the CNE, the New Haven being just the parent company. CNE passenger motive power was typically little
4-4-0's, 2-6-0's and even the odd rail bus. Passenger trains consisted of 3-5 cars both directions and the station platforms were rarely more than 2-3 car lengths! Maybrook never saw I-4's or even I-2's (but later the big DL-109's did run through freights at night over the line) so east/west passenger car/grade limits regarding such engines are meaningless .
That wasn't the point. The point was that this was a hilly chunk of RR and that these were the tonnage ratings for a wide variety of motive power. While passenger service was gone early, you don't know that the Pacifics never saw the Maybrook line...unless you were there every day. I don't know if they were ever used, but it's interesting that they were listed on the Official NH tonnage map, isn't it? Fan trips ("daisy pickers" on the NH) did traverse the Maybrook from time to time. I know one of them used an I-5 Hudson (I've seen the pics of an I-5 in Maybrook) in the 1940's. So never say never. BTW, the CNE and the NH were more tightly associated than you alledge before the final merger. CNE engines could be found off the CNE, while NH engines could be found on the CNE, they used the same rule book, etc.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
Paul, I happen to be very well acquainted with the old CNE and its operations, having lived right along the Maybrook line for decades. What old tonnage maps may indicate and what actually took place are in this case two different things. There's plenty of detail reference material available to demonstrate that no large NH passenger engines ever operated over it on an regular assigned basis during its passenger service/CNE days. Nimke, alone, has published 5 volumes regarding CNE operations!
Some of the CNE's F-5 steamers were indeed farmed out to the NH after passenger operations on the CNE ceased. There is nothing to indicate the situation ever saw a reversal. Even the use of NH passenger power for "specials" over the line was a very rare phenomenon, the best remembered probably being those for the Poughkeepsie Reggatas.
One can not make statements about NH east/west passenger traffic on the Maybrook, its station platform length limits, or grade limitations associated with same, when no such operations ever took place on this particular branchline.
The CNE was fully merged into the NH by 1927, which means that you'd have to be about 90 years old to even remember much about the CNE, and close to a 100 to be an adult and remember the CNE.
Did anyone say that they were on a regular assigned basis? No, they didn't. Did anyone say that they were NEVER used on the Maybrook? Yes, you did. Please prove that I-4's and I-2's NEVER ran on the Maybrook. I'll be patient...
Oh, so passenger trains did run on the Maybrook! I wonder if I-4's or I-2's ever pulled one of them? BTW, according to sources (specifically, Ronald Karr's "The Rail Lines of Southern New England"), passenger trains stopped operating over the CNE in December, 1927, *after* the NH fully merged them. So the CNE's F-5's were hardly "farmed out" to the NH after passenger operations ceased since the NH now fully owned said F-5's. More like the NH reassigned the F-5's since the CNE had nothing to say about it as they were done.
Now passenger trains never ran on the Maybrook? I sure wish you'd make up your mind. First you say they did, then you say then didn't... On January 1, 1927, the NH took full control of the CNE. In December of 1927, the NH ended all passenger service on the CNE. Looks like the NH ran passenger trains on the CNE for almost a full year, doesn't it?
BTW, you know what's the most amusing thing here... The tonnage maps were for freight. Can you actually say, with a straight face, that I-2's and I-4's were never used to haul freight on the Maybrook? Even for extra sections or war time emergency use (WWI or WWII)? After all, you said that they NEVER were used on the Maybrook...so you must know, right?
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
As usual, Paul, your inability to directly address the original subject matter is profound. Instead, you slip off into a nonsensical tangent about possible I-4's use in war-time service in a hopeless attempt to bolster your position.
First off, though, let me point out that I have an intimate knowledge of the CNE because of my location in the immediate area of the Maybrook Line, not by being 90 years old. My area has many historians who have devoted decades to documenting the line and what went on along it under the ownership of the CNE. Our local libraries have numerous volumes regarding its day-to-day operations, schedules, etc., as well as an historical repository of CNE records. I have talked with some of the historians regarding the CNE, as well as done my own reseach in the local libraries. It is for this reason that I have a far, far better knowledge of CNE passenger operations than you could hope for.
The original statement by Wolf, which started this discussion, provided a listing of supposed passenger train operations and tonnage involving New Haven motive power over the Maybrook Line, the associated passenger train lengths east and west due to grades, as well as assumed station platform lengths necessary to handle such traffic. Read the original post...it had nothing whatever to do with possible NH specials operated before or after the CNE stopped regular passenger service. The fact is that this was all pure spectulation based on Wolf's unfamiliarity with the line, that during its passenger service days it was under a different railroad, and his assumption that such NH passenger operations ever occurred - which they did not!
It is totally irrelevant to the discussion at hand if the New Haven ever ran an I-4 or I-2 over the Maybrook Line in war-time freight service or pulling a special because the discussion involved "regular" passenger service. The point of my original post was you can not make detailed statements, as Wolf did, about operations on line with which you have no familiarity with that road, just based on tonnage charts, as was the case here.
And as usual, you never, ever admit that you could be mistaken. You never, ever address any point that is counter to your own. You simply and endlessly repeat the same statements over and over again until the other side of the debate gives up. I'm still waiting for the proof that led you to say that I-4's and I-2's never operated on the Maybrook. Or just say that you mis-typed, were mistaken, or say that it's impossible to prove a negative in this specific case. Of course, you could lapse into your typical personal attacks...but then I'm used to that from you. I agree that I-4's and I-2's were not regular assigned power on the Maybrook. I agree that after 1927, there were no passenger trains on the Maybrook. I agree that using tonnage maps to formulate what's a possible passenger train load is a bad idea as speed restrictions and the recovery from same are just a tad different than for a freight. And saying that platform lengths governed train lengths back in the day is also a bit untrue (full length platforms is more of a modern thing). But none of that has any effect of weather or not an I-4 or an I-2 ever ran on the Maybrook for any reason. Can you admit that you can't know that they NEVER did? Or will you ignore this, too?
Sure... That's why you didn't know that the NH operated passenger trains over the CNE for almost the full year of 1927, right? Ooops! I'm guess you will never, ever admit you were wrong about that one, either.
*Ahem.* The NH stopped passenger train service over the CNE (not the CNE) in December, 1927 after taking over the CNE completely on January 1,
1927. And therefore there were NH passenger trains for 1927 over the CNE...but I guess you'll never admit to that, will you? BTW, I agree that Wolf's assumptions are not correct about passenger service on the CNE, as using tonnage numbers to determine passenger loads is not a good idea in the first place, let alone on the freight-only (after
1927) CNE.
I agree that his assumptions were wrong about typical passenger train service on the CNE. However, in your original statement, you also said,
"Passenger trains consisted of 3-5 cars both directions and the station platforms were rarely more than 2-3 car lengths! Maybrook never saw I-4's or even I-2's (but later the big DL-109's did run through freights at night over the line) so east/west passenger car/grade limits regarding such engines are meaningless ."
If you want to avoid controversy, don't use absolutes like "never"...'cause they'll bite you later on.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
These were the points of contension based on the original post(s). You have, at last, acknowledged that and the fact that they were incorrect. Beyond that the silly nonsense about hypothetical I-4's running on the Maybrook Line was utter rubbish and irrelevant to the discussion. Wake up to the real world, Paul!
This is the real world? If it was the real world, you would admit that a) The NH ran passenger trains on the CNE for 1 year, b) The NH, not the CNE, stopped passenger service, c) The NH reassigned the F-5's, the CNE did not "farm" them out to the NH after passenger operations were over, and d) You have no way to know if I-4's or I-2's never ran on the Maybrook (which you said they NEVER did). But since we're in your fantasy land, you can make all the ridiculous assertions you want and never be concerned about the actual facts. Tell me to wake up? Why don't you grow up and admit when you are wrong? Or are you mentally unable to do so? Because the next time you admit you were wrong on any internet forum or group will be the first time. BTW, isn't it about time for you to lob some personal attacks, declare victory, and disappear? That's been your M.O. in the past...Of course you could prove me wrong by actually admitting you were in error, but I'm not really concerned about that ever happening.
Paul A. Cutler III
************* Weather Or No Go New Haven
*************
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