105 carriages ?

"Dragon Heart" wrote

This referred to the haulage of some of Airfix Mk2s by that company's then newly released Class 31 diesel locomotive. The 31 was fitted with traction tyres and the Mk 2s extremely free-running. It was widely reported in the model press at that time.

I've no idea whether anyone has attempted to equal or beat that record, but

105 coaches takes up an awful lot of space and the opportunities to challenge it must be fairly limited as a result. However I suspect some of the new generation of diesel models would manage a similar or greater load with relative ease.

John.

"John Turner"wrote

I have somewhere - possibly in an ancient Railway Modeller from the early 60s - a photo of Hornby demonstrating how robust the Ringfield motor was by building an elevated track at an exhibition on which a Ringfield-equipped 00 loco successfully hauled several grown men sitting (no doubt very carefully) on trailing carrying trucks.

A lot of model-scale haulage has to do with adhesive weight of the loco, the fact that most plastic-bodied coaches are way under scale weight, and the general frictional excellence of most items fitted with pinpoint bearings which don't (that I know of) run hot boxes like the prototype can do. Downsides are unfeasible curve radii and the renowned propensity of worm-and-pinion drives not to be anywhere near effective torque multipliers - you get speed control at the expense of sheer brute power. I'm keen to address this anomaly in a future scratchbuild/rebuild except the only compact right-angle spur gears easily available, are the standard Scalextric drive set (about 4:1) in cheap plastic so I don't know what their durability is when taking railway-size loads from a rufftuff motor. Plus there's the worry that Branchlines, currently up for sale through Andrew Mullins's imminent retirement and the only significant retailer of compact spur gears for the rest of the drive chain, may yet disappear and leave us in a hole.

Find of the day: mint boxed set of the Bachmann Esso oil tanker three-set (item 37-366) in a Cambridge charity shop for 4.99. Just on my way out of the shop when I spotted the distinctive Bachmann packaging livery on the back of the box in the rear of a glass display cabinet normally loaded with ornaments and watches.

Tomny Clarke, off to Scaleforum tomorrow despite the crapulous state of weekend train services round here

"Tony Clarke" wrote

I think you'll find this used one of their (rather inaccurate) 'Deltic' Co-Co diesel models and it was used to haul one small boy.

John.

We have, at last count, 8 charity shops in town ....... never even seen a model loco or rolling stock. I visit each of them each time I visit town, much to the annoyance of her indoors, but nothing :-(