Question for the Aussies and anyone else familiar with long heavy consists, when using multiple locos how are they distributed?
I take it coupling strain is the main variable, but they never seem to be evenly spread.
It depends how heavy the total train is, most of our trains are 2,600 to 3,800 tonnes and are mainly pulled by 3x 3,300hp (340kn continuous) or 2x 4,000hp (420kn continuous) with most grades being 1in50, in NSW where the grades are 1in40 for the 100 wagon grain and 100 wagon coal trains they'll put some at the front, some in the middle and a few bankers at the back, recently SSR ran a 100 hopper train from NSW to Dimboola, Vic while empty all five locos where at the front, when loaded due to the big 1in50 out of Stawell and coupler stress they put 3 at the front, 2 in the middle and 2 at the back (I think it was).
This one is a common size for WA, SA, Vic and NSW trains, the Steel trains are the ones that are really heavy however they don't exceed 3,800 tonnes so as you can see the stress on couplers isn't much.
If you are referring to the ore trains in the Pilbara region, where they are often upto to 2 km in length and 200+ wagons, then the distribution pattern is usually, or similar to, ...
