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I see where you're coming from. Using a pair of sd-45's to haul 20 coal cars seems like overkill. It might not even seem prototypical if they have to traverse switches too tight for six-axle locos. I found that underpowering the motive power on my layouts gave me more of a challenge and personal enjoyment. This meant less six-axle locos and more four-axle locos. Also I tried not to pair them as often, so that I got the chance to run the loco backwards, which can be fun.
I did notice though, that when another player in my multiplayer session attempted to get his single loco going with his consist, he couldn't get it moving. Apparently DCC mode may not in fact be the easiest method of getting a heavy train moving. This might explain why you see overpowered equipment in the in-game sessions, because they were concerned about people getting stuck using DCC mode. Just my theory.
You can test this for yourself at the curved track leading to the power plant on Kickstarter County. Stop the loaded coal cars on the curve, and try to get it moving again.
John, the coal trains out here are beasts weighing in at a whooping 16,000 tons. The real spectacle is watching them climb out of the Powder River Basin. It's all upgrade out of the basin to the high plains of Wyoming and beyond. It takes every ounce of power those units can provide to get them over the road and into Nebraska and beyond where ever their destinations are. Power is usually given at a hp/ton ratio. a 20 car coal train is something that shortlines like here in Idaho handle. EIRR was at one point handling 35 car coal trains for the sugar beet plants in Rupert, Burley, and Paul. These trains were powered by the more powerful 4 axle units in the Eastern Idaho Railroad fleet, GP40's. However, UP sends them occasional 75-100 car unit grain trains for the ethanol plant in Burley. The entire EIRR fleet is not powerful enough to handle the monster trains, so they barrow the UP power and run them through to the plant, and then back to UP at Minidoka. It's an extremely slow run because the track isn't made to handle highpseed 6 axle trains. Max speed in general is probably about 35 even for the turns and local trains the EIRR runs. However, recently started about 2 years ago, UP decided to run Z's between Global 1 in Chicago, and Brooklyn Intermodal yard in Portland, OR. These trains are ZG1BR, and ZBRG1. Usually, neither train is massive, sometimes only running an extreme 18 cars. But because they run on such tight schedules, UP intentionally over powers these trains in order to keep speed on the 2 day run between Chicago and Portland. I've seen some running 25 cars with 5 units on the head ranging from GEVO's and SD70's to AC4400CW's and even a C40-8. Just watch and see how your road operates, you'd be surprised at what you might find racing across the landscapes out there.Sure in our "play" world this is fine, but sometimes railroads need to use smaller locomotives for their heavy trains due to track conditions and curves. You can see this sometimes on smaller branch lines with rough track, or perhaps management not willing to fork over some cash to lease or purchase appropriate power like the local railroad in my area where SD45s, GP40s and SD40s are their mainstay.
The binding of the wheels on the coal trains will happen in real life as well considering that the wheels are biting into the track due to the weight of the loaded coal hoppers. This will happen due to the cars being pushed "into" the track on the curve.
Keep in mind too that coal its self is very heavy and this is why there are short coal trains in the eastern US while in the west in the Powder River region, there are coal trains nearly a mile long. Speaking of these mile long coal trains... During my Midwest and western Midwestern travels, I have seen large SD70s, and various GEVOs on both ends of these trains. While they move in the 40 mph back here in the east, they are moving at 50-60 mph across the Great Plaines.
John, the coal trains out here are beasts weighing in at a whooping 16,000 tons. The real spectacle is watching them climb out of the Powder River Basin. It's all upgrade out of the basin to the high plains of Wyoming and beyond. It takes every ounce of power those units can provide to get them over the road and into Nebraska and beyond where ever their destinations are. Power is usually given at a hp/ton ratio. a 20 car coal train is something that shortlines like here in Idaho handle. EIRR was at one point handling 35 car coal trains for the sugar beet plants in Rupert, Burley, and Paul. These trains were powered by the more powerful 4 axle units in the Eastern Idaho Railroad fleet, GP40's. However, UP sends them occasional 75-100 car unit grain trains for the ethanol plant in Burley. The entire EIRR fleet is not powerful enough to handle the monster trains, so they barrow the UP power and run them through to the plant, and then back to UP at Minidoka. It's an extremely slow run because the track isn't made to handle highpseed 6 axle trains. Max speed in general is probably about 35 even for the turns and local trains the EIRR runs. However, recently started about 2 years ago, UP decided to run Z's between Global 1 in Chicago, and Brooklyn Intermodal yard in Portland, OR. These trains are ZG1BR, and ZBRG1. Usually, neither train is massive, sometimes only running an extreme 18 cars. But because they run on such tight schedules, UP intentionally over powers these trains in order to keep speed on the 2 day run between Chicago and Portland. I've seen some running 25 cars with 5 units on the head ranging from GEVO's and SD70's to AC4400CW's and even a C40-8. Just watch and see how your road operates, you'd be surprised at what you might find racing across the landscapes out there.
P.S. if you want to see some of the trains I'm talking about, I have a few here you can watch and enjoy
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUPguy1/videos
Well if you're modeling BNSF, you can't go wrong with lots and lots of GE products, and not much else. :hehe:
Matt
John, I've been to Salt Lake City a few times, and it always amazes me at the number of UP trains that pass through that city. On my most recent adventure about 2004 timeframe I saw at least 12-14 trains passing while traveling through. Intermodal, grain, manfiests, you name it passes through the wonderful SLC backdrop. One of these days I'm gonna get back down there just to watch the trains in and around area as it would be great fun. It used to be here on the OSL one could see trains lined up in the sidings in stuff, and 20+ daylight freights weren't un-common. I used to watch a great deal with my grandad while he was working. He'd be doing something inside one of his sites along the route, and I'd be out watching the trains. There are a few places I knew I would see a train even if we were there for only 10 minutes. It was so much fun. Sometimes we would be out all day from dawn to dusk, and I one time spotted over 30 trains in our journey through Idaho. Shoot now I can't even count 30 trains in an entire day. Just some good memories though .That did run through my mind a couple of times. It's funny I'll take a storm chasing trip and may or may not see a lot of trains. When I usually see them, my video camera is buried under the seat and by the time I dig it out, we've turned on to another road, after paralleling the tracks for 100s of miles, only to now see nothing or nothing but abandoned ROW.
One of the more memorable trips took us along the Strafford Sub and across to La Junta CO. We've done this a few times now, and the busy highway parallels the railroad for a good portion of the trip. There is a constant stream of BNSF freights lined up one after another as far as the eyes could see.
Being closer to dark during one trip, we could also see the railroad signals all lit up as well and saw them flip from green to red as the trains moved along. These were mile long container, auto, and general freights and the shear number of trains reminded me of a model railroad or Trainz route.
Another time, we were heading from Clovis NM east, and as we passed through the same area, as we approached Strafford, there were trains going both directions along with locals serving the elevators and methanol plant.
On another trip, we were up in Montana. We were watching storms in the area and traveled up to Shelby. Heading into Shelby was like driving the Marias Pass X route. I knew the track layout and recognized the yard. Another day we headed up to Browning then into Glacier National Park. As we drove through Essex, there were a number of freights, though not very long due to the grades, along with Amtrak's Empire Builder consists. On this same trip, we stopped in Forsythe, MT for gas and there were long coal trains lined up in the yard. Sadly this trip brought us up along US 12 as we headed to Great Falls. This highway paralleled the old Pacific Extension. Some of the viaducts were in place, and some of the yard structures were visible in Melstone with an old gantry still standing that was used for train orders.
Anyway, the west and Midwest hold a lot of interest and could mean a whole new world of modeling. Heck, I've been through Mobridge, SD and up into the Standing Rock reservation so that could mean a whole MILW route too!
I didn't expect all this good stuff. It seems that I can do whatever I want on my own RR. Thanks for all the good information.
In the UK, DB Cargo use their standard Class 66 traction (3300hp diesel) on anything from 2 - 3 wagon trips of less than 100 tonnes trailing, to 2000 feet 4000 tonne trailing loads. The days of having a wide range of motive power for different types of work are gone. A high hp loco working a light train will accelerate quickly and can shut off power or reduce throttle to keep momentum just as economically as in the old days when you would have an 1100hp Type 2 diesel thrashing its guts out to move a lightweight train. (Of course the Type 2 sounded better, but that's not really a consideration when it comes to commercial operation of a railway!).