Last night I installed a decoder in a not-new Intermountain F7A. I put it on my shelf loop (about 27 feet of run) and hooked up a prototype-stickler's nightmare: an IC coach, two Kato Super Chief cars, two modern autoracks, and a Centralia caboose. I watched it run around a few laps and then was called away for something. After work today, I went downstairs and noticed the moving glimmer of a headlight. Yep, I left that awesome consist chug for 15 hours behind the little engine that could. I stopped the train and the engine was only slightly warm - hard to even perceive. I'm sure I am not alone in doing something like this. I'm just glad there was no cat-induced derailment.
Good engine. It's broken in for running in that direction; it could be run for 15 hours in the other direction. I would probably run it for 4-5 hours in the other direction.
The Intermountain Fs are well designed and built. I have an excellent FT AB set myself. Regards your 15 endurance trial, you're definitely not the first, and I'm sure you won't be the last. Though it is a little scary when discovered. LOL
I once put an old Rapido FA on my old RR,went out to cut the grass,left it running for five days,LOL!! Nothing happened to it,still runs..
Back when we first got NTRAK running here in the Louisville, KY Metro region, we had several Bachmann SD-40-2's that we ran on our NTRAK module layout. This was when the SD-40-2 almost top of the line. We kept them lubed up, clean and running. We would put one or two SD-40's on a freight train of about 20-25 cars and let them run. Since none of us had that much rolling stock, these SD-40's were left running for days at a time. Come in, in the morning start the train up and let it run ALL day until we closed down that evening. And the train ran ON & ON. Finally wore out the axle end bearings. Enlarged the holes in the truck side-frames, so the axles would not stay seated. Remember this was NOT a expensive engine. NO DCC, can motor, flywheels, just a basic motor driving six axles. A little CHEAP engine, but it RAN & RAN.
I don't think you left it running, I think the engine was trying to run away from the rest of the consist...
Had that been me and I had inadvertently left the room door open I would have returned to a scattered consist and would still probably be on my hands and knees downstairs looking for my lost loco after the Famous Deekus the Cat had absconded with it and did what she does so well, hide stuff.
After 40 some years in n-scale model railroading, I read this as a testament to excellent track work, locomotive and rolling stock. Too many times, I have seen a train run the same track multiple time without a problem and then a derail happens. ???
......and just as your wife, girl friend, or neighbor walk in the room to see them run "without a problem". :crying:
It was only about 3 hours with my Kato FP40 and a string of mixed freight. I got called away to cook dinner and decided to leave it on the outer loop of Unitrak since I could see / hear it from the kitchen, (layout is in the dining / living room). I got the chicken in the oven and went upstairs to let Laura, (my then girlfriend), know when dinner would be ready. Let me just peak in at email. Oh, look, something from an old friend. Hmm, cool thread on Trainboard. The smoke detector went off. Dinner was ruined by the train was still running.
I did something similar to that. I have a few large brass steam locomotives that I do not run on my layout because they would not have shown up on a railroad like mine, plus the turntables, only 90 footers too short for a Z-5 Yellowstone (2-8-8-4). Although my layout is a point to point, with the use of hidden staging tracks I can run a locomotive continuously. I took the Yellowstone out of its box, lightly lubricated everything and put it on the rails to run for a while to keep things lubricated. I got distracted by a phone can and completely forgot that I had the train running in the basement. Old Timers Disease or something like that I guess. When I went down stairs the next day, there it was just purring around the layout, not even warm to the touch. I guess this is not only a Hoorah for the locomotive, but the track work too.
I have a lot of locomotives, but my oldest and most reliable diesel is a Kato/Atlas RS-3 from the very first production run in 1985. I keep my locos very well clean and maintained and when not in use, I return them to their boxes. But I have this one RS3 from '85 which I still run regularly on my eastern Pennsylvania layout. I have weathered it lightly, and I know I have logged hundreds of 1:1 miles on it over the years, but it still runs, pulls, stays quiet and performs just as if I bought it yesterday. But that is not a unique case. From my roster of locos, I have very little wearing down as long as I take care of each loco. I still have an HO lashup of Tyco/Mantua diesels which I got new in 1959, and when I returned to HO in the hobby in 1982, they still ran, and even today they still run nicely on my HO switching track. Maybe I am lucky, but I have no complaints to this date. Ken "FloridaBoy" Willaman
Atlas RS-3 You are so right about the Atlas locomotives. I started my layout in the early 80's in HO after abandoning N scale because of the poor running locomotives available back then. I didn't have much track down as I was handlaying code 70 but I was starting to build up a fleet of locomotives which I was custom painting for my freelance railroad. Not much was available back then what I would call great running locomotives. I had painted a couple of Athearn geeps which were remotored with NWSL can motors to get them to run better when Atlas brought out their Alcos. I was amazed at how well they ran, as good or possibly better than the remotered geeps so I bought a lot of them and custom painted all of them for the Logan Valley. Here are some of them, with the Athearn geep in the rear. There are a few not in the picture, probably in the hidden staging area. After all these years they are still exceptional running locomotives. I should have picked up a few more.
I will agree with the comments on the early Atlas RS-3s. I have a few that continue on to this day with nary a hiccup while other stuff of the same era have long hit the scrap line and parts box.
Mine all run so good after all these years I don't need to find a favorite because it runs better. They all are great performers. Once painted, they have all been out on the layout, somewhere, run and lubricated over the years without a single problem with any. Not bad for locomotives that have passed their birthday over twenty years ago.
Three hours is almost a normal run time for me..I'll routinely let trains run when I'm working in the train room,which doesn't necessarily mean I'm messing with trains.I,of course,like Atlas,Kato,Intermountain,FVM,ETC locomotives,but I still run old stuff from when I started back in the 60's.Even the way I run them,with as many as I have,some don't get run for 2-3 years sometimes,but I do run everything..
