Subject:
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Re: Longest train, eh? (was: Two Easy Questions about Rolling Stock)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 1 Feb 2002 17:01:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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2042 times
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In lugnet.trains, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Tony Hafner writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.fun, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> Ok, I will change that text: it is obviously wrong - my mistake.
> But in real life speed records with trains have to be made in both directions
> and for long Lego train records, I am of the opinion that a record should only
> count if the long train is doing a complete loop. Just bringing it to movement
> on a straight is another kind of record...
>
> For the moment I have changed the text in a way, that no more misunderstandings
> are possible. Thanks alot for your hint. I followed most of the PNLTC
> discussions in august 2000, but it seems I have completely missed the longest
> train in the report then.
I don't think we mentioned this particular record at the time. We don't
have it documented and I'm totally going from memory.
> Our 127 waggons have had a length of 127x(16+3)studs x 8mm/stud= 19,30 m =
> 63,33 feet
> If you have been able to do your loop with 50% of 150 feet, you would have that
> record for sure too....
No, the *loop* was more like 240 feet or so. I mean that the *train* was
somewhere around 150 feet. The layout was 90 by 40 feet, and the outer loop
did the whole perimeter.
Again, it's not well documented. I shouldn't have mentioned it because I
really can't support it. I'm probably going to receive a flogging from the
club now!
> > It *might* be the longest ever, but "definitely" is a strong word. At the
> > Seattle Center House in August 2000 (a couple of months before this), PNLTC
> > was running a train that was at least 150 feet long. I don't have a car
> > count, but close to half of the train was made up of 16-long hoppers. It
> > never made it all the way around the track without decoupling, but we did
> > get a run or two where it went at least its own length.
>
> On a straight line we would have been able to put much more waggons behind, but
> at the 180° turning points the friction of the wheel sets increase the force on
> the magnet coulings so much, that they tend to tear off easily for any train
> being longer than 100 waggons.
We had something like 5 straights between each curve on the corners and that
probably made a huge difference. It still wasn't enough, though. I know a
number of things we'd do differently if we were to try this again.
> > I doubt there were very many stock Lego cars on it, though, and there may not • have been any.
> > We didn't register this train officially (with Guinness) for "longest train"
> > because we wanted to do that with a train that could consistently make it
> > all the way around the outer loop. In the end, we registered a train with
> > well under half the total cars.
>
> Could you bring out, exactely how many cars / how much lenght that has been: I
> wasn't able to find that right now mentioned in any of the august 2000
> postings. And second question: have you used just engines at the front of the
> train?
I'll see if I can find out the train's makeup. I don't have that info
myself. As far as engines go, they were in the front, the back, the middle...
> > Notes to those who've never done a truly huge train:
> > * As Ben mentioned, multiple steady hands on multiple regulators is key.
> > Our track wasn't really designed very well for the purpose of a train this
> > size, and our regulators weren't evenly spaced. As a result, the train
> > would surge in various places and decouple.
>
> We fought against the same problems...
>
> > * If you want to use stock magnetic couplers, that is your limiting factor.
> > And just tossing in more locomotives in various places doesn't fully fix
> > this problem, because if the pushing/pulling power to the cars isn't
> > distributed properly then the couplers "buckle" on turns.
>
> We started our train just to see how many waggons could be pulled. I would not
> have forseen any trouble for a much longer train with more engines spread
> between the waggon. Maybe one has to use just lots of engines: every 10 waggons
> an extra engine (+ lots of transformers) might help to fix the problem and
> make a "endless" train possible?
> But - as said - we never tested that...
Since we were using mostly MOC stuff, there was a huge variety in cars. So
using a simple rule like one engine per 10 cars didn't work- the variance in
friction made engine distribution more complex. That probably would work
for a mess of identical cars, or at least for a mess of cars with the same
wheel arrangement and approximate weight.
--
Tony Hafner
www.hafhead.com
www.pnltc.org
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