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In lugnet.trains, David VinZant writes:
> The Pacific Northwest Lego Train Club has just broken the Guiness
> Record for the longest LEGO train Layout - 3232 feet, or 7752 pieces
> of track crossed.
> Ben Fleskes
> PNLTC
I'm presuming Ben / David means 7752 pieces of track connected?
In lugnet.trains, Tony Hafner writes:
> In lugnet.trains, Kevin Loch writes:
> > What did you use to power the track? Experience shows that a
> > standard LEGO train regulator wouldn't do the job. How does that
> > affect the record qualifications?
>
> We actually used pure LEGO. There were multiple regulators, each
> connected to the track at multiple points. The tricky part is to
> make sure they are all set in the same direction and getting the
> right amount of juice.
I'm very interested in the technical details of this project.
How many motors and how far apart were they spaced? How did you
keep it from pulling off the corners? If the food-court section
was, say, 100', that means the track loops back on itself three
dozen times. Even if a single engine had enough power and traction,
the cars would just pull off on the corners. Did you just set all
the controllers to 1/4 speed or something? Was there a current
meter on the main feed? Did you need multiple circuits? ie. Did
it exceed 10-15 Amps? When you say the record was broken - what
was the old record? Was there one - presumably by TLC - or did
this establish the record for the first time? Are answers to
these and other questions going to be posted on the web-site?
Details man - I need details. :-)
SRC
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In lugnet.trains, Steve Chapple writes:
> In lugnet.trains, David VinZant writes:
> > The Pacific Northwest Lego Train Club has just broken the Guiness
> > Record for the longest LEGO train Layout - 3232 feet, or 7752 pieces
> > of track crossed.
> > Ben Fleskes
> > PNLTC
>
> I'm presuming Ben / David means 7752 pieces of track connected?
Connected and crossed by a train. I think the record requires both that the
track be contiguous and formed into a layout, and that a train of some sort
traverse it.
>
> I'm very interested in the technical details of this project.
> How many motors and how far apart were they spaced?
The train itself I don't think was all that long! 6-8 cars with the "Guinness
World Record" lettering on them, pulled by one of the Erie Lackawanna like
locomotives.
Go to Brickshelf and look, would be my advice.
++Lar
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In lugnet.trains, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.trains, Steve Chapple writes:
> > In lugnet.trains, David VinZant writes:
> > > The Pacific Northwest Lego Train Club has just broken the Guiness
> > > Record for the longest LEGO train Layout - 3232 feet, or 7752 pieces
> > > of track crossed.
> > I'm very interested in the technical details of this project.
> > How many motors and how far apart were they spaced?
>
> The train itself I don't think was all that long! 6-8 cars with the
> "Guinness World Record" lettering on them, pulled by one of the Erie
> Lackawanna like locomotives.
Ah <light turning on above head> So THAT's why there wasn't much in
the way of engines and cars compared to the amount of track. I had
understood that the object was to make the longest TRAIN, which was
why each club sent a car, and such a large amount of track was needed.
In lugnet.trains, Dan Parker writes:
> ...PNLTC broke the official...Record for Longest LEGO Train Line of
> 545 meters (1788 ft) set in 1992.
By whom? LEGO themselves?
> Clubmembers operated a train over a 3343-foot continuous length of rail...
Over 1000 meters - Wow. How many meters officially?
> ...which took 43 minutes to complete (vs. 18 minutes previously).
The speed of the train would have to be an official constant too, then?
> A secondary record, the Longest Freight Train, was set with 3 locomotives
> pulling 68 cars for 5 complete laps around an approximately 250 foot loop.
This 68 car three engine freight train was more what I was thinking of.
Is the record determined by the number of cars, (can they be any type?)
or by the lenth of the train?
> 8. Longest monorail circuit: 277.5 feet.
How many monorail contributors? I used to have close to that amount of
monorail, but had to sell over half in auctions to raise needed cash. :-(
> If folks are interested, I can paraphrase the original GBWR article which I
> obtained from Denmark (internal company newsletter LEGO REVIEW).
I'm interested - Can the whole article be scaned and posted or something?
SRC
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Clarifying the train, length, configuration, and other details...
track length was 3343 ft, not 3232 as originally posted. This smaller number
was the uncalibrated value from the LEGO odometer. As far as an equivalent
number of official meters, I defer to your official calculator as I didn't
make the conversion. We'll need to review the video but I recall the long run
train was a 4565-styled locomotive pulling 2 boxcars in PNLTC livery. Speed
of the train was not a constant just it rarely is for actual trains (records
are simply how long it takes to get from one place to another).
For the Longest Train record, we ran a loco on point, another buried in the
middle, and a pusher. We restricted running to a plain concentric loop,
naturally. Freightcars were of many standard forms.
Digressing, the 'GBWR'-lettered train was too heavy and had an odd coupling
arrangement. It only ran on a smaller oval when that track wasn't being used
for the main record. Furthermore, it would not have been possible to run the
Ambassador train (or many consists, for that matter) due to mechanical
shortcomings in many of the cars (non-standardization, non-train wheel
mountings, etc.).
[from the 1992 article]TLG received a request from organizers of the annual
activity weekend for youth in Billund run by the College of Further Education,
the Music School, and the Billund Center
WE only used about half of the monorail track we amassed. For some reason, we
either ran out of time, energy, or space. ;)
I'll try to get the '92 article scanned locally.
d
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I
> > A secondary record, the Longest Freight Train, was set with 3 locomotives
> > pulling 68 cars for 5 complete laps around an approximately 250 foot loop.
>
> This 68 car three engine freight train was more what I was thinking of.
> Is the record determined by the number of cars, (can they be any type?)
> or by the lenth of the train?
At one time, I held this record unoffically, with 92 cars, and ONE engine...if
you dig back you can find ref. to it on .trains
James P
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James,
taking your word for it -- and I do -- I was very surprised that we couldn't
recreate a similar scenario. Question, did you acheive these results on a
straight run or otherwise? Did you run for any appreciable amount of time? I
believe we unofficially ran for 4-5 minutes.
Now that PNLTC has the track, I'd love to set up some 4-500 foot loops and
tinker around with some super-long consists.
d
In lugnet.trains, James Powell writes:
> At one time, I held this record unoffically, with 92 cars, and ONE engine...if
> you dig back you can find ref. to it on .trains
>
> James P
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In lugnet.trains, Dan Parker writes:
> James,
> taking your word for it -- and I do -- I was very surprised that we couldn't
> recreate a similar scenario. Question, did you acheive these results on a
> straight run or otherwise? Did you run for any appreciable amount of time? I
> believe we unofficially ran for 4-5 minutes.
>
> Now that PNLTC has the track, I'd love to set up some 4-500 foot loops and
> tinker around with some super-long consists.
>
> d
I had about 200 pieces of track as the loop (my upper loop), and about 30 bogie
cars, plus the rest 2 axle cars (so, about 240 axles towed)...the train was 5-7
cars short of being connected at both ends :). Loop was just straight and
corner track, no zigzag's. Run time was more limited by my bordom than
anything else, I was mostly doing it to see how much I could start (with as
much as I had behind the engine, it was a struggle to get it to start).
You can have a look at the old thread:
http://news.lugnet.com/trains/?n=3977
James
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