I wonder why noone has ever wondered how much a real train would weigh in n-scale...or maybe how much a locomotive would weigh fully serviced, fueled and sanded w/ the crew full of beans. is there a formula for that? just a brain fart i had... dave
I guess, if 1 ton is 2,000 pounds, and that would make a 200 ton engine weigh 400,000 pounds, then an N scale engine would be 1/160th of that, or 2,500 pounds! Better brace your layout's legs! It would sure get good traction and have excellent current pickup. Probably would stay on the track pretty well also. You might have to feed it 660 volts to get it to run though! If that sucker ever derailed, get out of its way fast!
Wouldn't it be 1/160th of all dimensions - length, width, and depth? That would make a 420000 lb scale loco about 1.6 ounces (1/4096000 or 1/(160x160x160)). That doesn't seem right, either.
I think the 160^3 answer is correct. A locomotive (or any 3-D object) has a density, measured in lbs/cubic ft, for example. If you kept the density the same and scaled the object down by a factor of 160, the weight would be scaled down by 160^3.
I believe the 1:160 scale applies just to distances. Thats a helluva good question though. Hmmmmm.... Mike
160 cubed is 4,096,000. Thus, by using this figure, a 400000 pound engine should weigh .097 pounds or 1.55 ounces in N Scale. Not a very stable pulling platform.
The weight of any n-scale object should be 1/(160^3) of full size. So you should just multiply the weight by 2.4414x10-7 power or divide the weight by 4096000.
Well that looks like its right...was punching in numbers into a calulator for about 15 minutes trying to figure that out. I kept on dividing the locomotive weigh in lbs by .00625 to get 2000lbs for the n scale loco. I guess the other formulas are correct, so that means that the n scale locos weights are correctly scaled down...suprising and amazing! Thanks, later! Dave
