Gradients

[figworthy]

Probably an element of the "how long is a piece of string" type question, but what is the steepest sensible gradient for 009.  I'm envisaging shortish goods trains with small tank locos, basically a quarry type operation, but with track being the journey from quarry to standard gauge railhead.

 

 

Thanks

 

Adrian

[buffalo]

Do you already have the stock you intend to run? If so, the simple answer is to take a length of track, place it on a suitable piece of wood, put a typical train on the track and try running it at different inclinations. That's what I did when I started building an HOe layout. I found that small Austrian engines, such as Liliput U class 0-6-2T and 0-4-0 diesel were able to start and pull four bogie coaches/wagons or six to eight four wheel wagons up a 1 in 38 gradient, but that may vary according to how well the stock runs. You also need to take into account the effect of curves, so I tried to ensure no curves were inclined at more than 1 in 50. These figures work for me, but I'd strongly recommend trying it with your own stock if possible before building the layout.

 

Nick

[figworthy]

Thanks Nick.

 

I do have some stock, but at the moment only one loco (using a Farish 57xx chassis).  This is still in the original DC setup, whereas I'm intending to run it on DCC, so until I get it chipped, it isn't going anywhere.  I'm hoping that the stopping places will be relatively flat, so the gradients should be taken on the run.

 

 

Adrian

[PLD]

Word of warning borne out of experience:

 

With constant/repeated use, the head of the rail tends to get pollished (especially if you use some track-cleaning fluids) and you may find that over time locos start to struggle on a grade with a load that they could previously handle...

 

Again as D_M said, don't design the gradient to the limit of the loco, allow for some degredation of performance...

 

Paul

[figworthy]

At vast expense, I purchased a DC controller and had a play. I have an "H" beam which is quite rigid, so I started adding bits of 2x1 under one end to see what would happen. Running with just the loco, the limit seems to be about 1:7.3, with a loaded wagon (three 00 track gauges) and an empty one, 1:10 was managable. although occasional use of the sanders was needed That weight is probably as much as it would get in real use, although spread across a slightly larger number of wagons. Within the limitations of the 5" width on the H beam, I did put a curve in, but that didn't seem to make much difference to what was possible.

 

 

Adrian