Do any of you MTL GP-35 owners out there have any info on the most cars (axles) one engine can pull? 1) On level tracks? 2) Up a 2% tracks? Thanks Tsa
Tsa, In my testing for the recent GP35 review in Ztrack, I could pull almost 30 cars on an even grade with 220mm curves. The engine was slipping a little. I think 15-20 would be the max on a level grade. I did not try pulling on any grades so I can't help you there. My recommendation would be double head the loco for better performance and so you can pull a ton of cars! Rob Kluz
My layout is flat and on that layout time and time again, wheel slippage occurred after 12. It will pull more, but I don't like the wheel slippage.
On my grade layout , the geep will pull about 4 well cars. I also suggerst doble heading the train, because 2 engine will pull more then 2 single engine. Z does not like grade, if you build a grade be prepare frequent cleaning of your grade to keep the wheel from slipping, and/ or double or triple head your train.
We ran our geeps last weekend at the GATS, and even though they will pull quite a bit, we settled on 12-15 car trains on the level outer loop. and 10 car trains for 1 locomotive on a 2% grade. Loren Snyder brought his huge end module with 2% grade on the inner track last weekend. It has about 24 feet of folded dogbone track that rises to 4" in the center of the dogbone, making it a 2%. I could not get my Mikado with 80 cars up it, but he GP could just do ten 50' cars without much wheel slippage. On the straightaway you can pull about 40-50 cars, but the turns take their toll. For reliable all day action, 10-15 cars seems best on our modules. -Robert Oops! 8 cars, not 80 cars behind the Mikado! Big oops! [ January 23, 2006, 07:12 PM: Message edited by: pray59 ]
Hi All: At the World's Greatest Hobby show in Houston in January, we ran a pair of GP35's pulling 50 Penzee coal hoppers...for hours and hours...without any derailments or slippage. The layout had no grade and ZBT minimum radius curves without any super elevation. Not quite as good as the F7's, but very admireable, we thought. Regards, Bill K. Houston
I have pulled 62 cars with a single wheel wipered and tuned F7, no grade, and a mixture of curve radii from 9" to 15". Your mileage may vary, of course. Bryan
Bryan forgot to mention that we have had pretty good experiences with the GP35's here is DC as well. We run on modules that are level. We have actually PUSHED (not pulled) 48 cars with one GP35 but it only ran for three feet before it got to the curve and started to wheel slip. At the WGH show a couple of weekends ago we had a 111 car train pulled by 1 AZL SD40-2 and 2 GP35's up front with another 2 GP35's as mid-train helpers. The GP35's are so well speed matched from the factory, we were able to run helpers flawlessly without DCC. It even drew comments from some HO scale folks. Those numbers come out to about 22 cars per loco. The SD40-2 was the last one we added. I think we were in the high 90 car range before we added the SD40-2 and one more GP35, so each will probably do over 30 cars without too much trouble if you are running on level track. Even having the modules set up slightly out of level will begin to propagate wheel slip. I think if the GP's were weighted some more, they would pull even better. Has anyone tried to add weight to them yet? The thing to keep in mind though is that prototype GP35's wouldn't neccessarily have been pulling more than 25 to 30 loaded freight cars by themselves anyway. We shouldn't forget that in our quest for long trains. Of course the concept of LONG TRAIN may vary some. In watching videos of German and Swiss railroads, I never once saw a train longer than 30 cars, whether it was going through the Alps or along the Rhine. Randy
Woops, yes, I was strictly answering the F7 query. I should have mentioned our stellar experiences with the GP35's. They are amazing little pieces of engineering. More weight is the next step in improving pulling power. And Randy, in our quest for long trains, there is really only ONE thing to remember: MORE IS BETTER! (for those that don't know, Randy and I are in the same local Z group, so it's ok if we raz each other a little) Bryan
Yeah, Bryan, I just want to know if you brought your camera to go watch trains in the rain/snow slop we are getting today? :-( Bryan also forgot to mention that we are getting a little bit manic right now because we have a show coming up this weekend (Upper Marlboro, MD Great Train Expo (former Greenberg's show)). We even got billing on the mailing they sent out to loyal customers, a first for us. I just realized that I haven't fixed my ATSF GP35 yet, and I've only got 2 more evenings before set up!!! AHHHHH!!! OK, I'll go take my medicine now. Randy
D&RGW timetables listed a Geep 35 at 1000 tons on the 2% from Denver to Moffat Tunnel... On the level, they coud handle upwards of 3500 tons, according to the same TT.
Last year Loren came down with the pre-production GP35 painted Gold, and we put the GP35 through it's paces. Here is a pic of 1 GP pulling 46 cars: At 47 cars the wheels were slipping. I still like to limit my trains to about 15 cars, as we run DCC, and can have several trains on the same track at the same time. When Loren brought his mountain turnaround module with 2% grade to the GATS last month, we found that about 15 cars was all that would run without wheel slippage, unless we double headed. You can see that he has the grades on a fairly tight radius, so 15 cars is all a GP could handle. Our modules really utilize the "Bend" in Z-Bend Track, so long coal drags don't paly so well: -Robert
Robert, Have you all weighted your hopper cars at all? They tend to do much better with a little weight added. The NWX group in Houston does long coal drags on modules with 9" and 10" minimum radius. Not sure how they avoid stringlining but they swear they do. Randy
That should do it. What radii are you all using? Are you seeing stringlining on all curves, or just the 180 deg. turnarounds? Randy
I concur with Bill on this... We pulled 60 cars with 2 GP35s on the T&B railroad... 15" radius curves, and long straights with slight bends. Adam
