My staging yards and yard inbound tracks are sized for about three diesels and 26-30 cars, depending on length of those modern mothers. The auto racks only get 18 or 19 cars. Longer trains don't really improve looks enough to bother with the extra headaches that occaisionally arise, so I stick with 27-30 cars.
My home layout still under construction (aren't they all) will be limited to 2 locos plus approx 15 cars due to length of passing loop. The club layout ( see posts by Jason Sydney N scale update for pics of layout ) the average is 60-70 cars but the current record now stands at 149 cars (six locos)
I run 30 car trains and all my passing sidings are at least 10 feet. When I build my next layout the sidings will actually vary between 10- 13 feet and the train length will vary also. That will give the dispatcher something extra to worry about.
The hidden storage yard is set to handle 4 30-car through trains, 1 12-car passenger; three 12-car locals. I run the through trains as a 'hot' freight, a 'dog' freight, the Super C all intermodal, and the YK unit coal train. The locals are a work train and two 12-car Phoenix locals. Smaller local jobs run 5-15 cars. 25-30 cars is the max my reverse loop can handle with 4 units. A train of that length is never entirely visible end-to-end on my layout; either the caboose or power is off-scene, and according to a recent visitor "25 cars on your layout looks like a hundred-car train", and that's what I was aiming for.
I usually have 28 cars behind FT ABBA units. The number of cars is limited to 28 cars because this is the length of my shortest reversing loop. The JJJ&E Railroad has four reversing loops.
I have 4 run-through hidden staging tracks, (behind the false backdrop) ranging 10-12' long. My only passing siding is about 11 feet. My trains tend to run 2-3 SD40-2's or a pair of SD50/60's and 20-25 cars. I also have a local yard, stub tracks each about 40" long. My locals tend to run under 10 cars..
Depends what era I am running on any given day. My passing sidings will take about 20 modern cars plus two locos. If I am running primarily 40 foot cars, about 25. David
up to 75 tankcars pulled by two dash-9 currently a container train consisting of 6 alan curtis 5-car sets pulled by a single dash-9 up a 2% horsheshoe curve....
Since I only have seven completed cars along with three loco's you can guess how many I run. Have three kits being assembled which - guess what - add's up to "10". Rocket science on my part
Hello, On my current layout I designed it for being able to run long trains. Before on other layouts I've always only been able to run 8-12 cars and some times the engineer was getting blinded by the FRED. Now the house I'm in I had the room and I used it to get a long main to be able to get some long trains. The longest I've pulled was 76 cars mixed freight but, due to curves, car weights, inproections in track, etc. that didn't last long, LOL. I found that I can run 40-45 and be o.k. When eveything is said and done (still hooking up the DCC and fine tuning the track, I'm planning on running 2 main line trains anywhere from 30-45 cars each and be switching a local freight of 6-12 cars. Happy Rails, Rick
My staging tracks are designed for 20 freight cars plus caboose and two locos. All I need now are the twenty freight cars and locos I haven't been into N scale for long but have now enough cars to make up one train with a few to switch around the industries
Welcome aboard, David. Nice to see another 'local' here. Hey, Alan... looky - Sleaford! And the right scale too!
What I like... versus.... what I'll probably be able to do are very different situations. I like long prototypical trains which are pulled by several locomotives.... that could mean 60+ cars and 3 or 4 diesels. I'll probably never have a layout large enough to handle more than about thirty 40'-50' freight cars or twelve 85' passenger cars in a consist.... [ 04. July 2004, 17:44: Message edited by: Calzephyr ]
Well, on and Inglenook or Time Saver, my trains arent too long... LOL. 5 cars max, but more usually 1.....
I usually run 30-40 car trains on my GN/NP layout. My rule of thumb for power is 1 engine for every ten cars in a train.
40-50.I only have 70 ish cars,but I sometimes put them all on a train and run it around with the only problem being the accumates on my atlas cars separating.
