Tuesday at SRSWF Club and everyone there is working on N layout, so I have entire HO layout to myself. I had brought my SP PA2/PB2 set, SP KM-4000 set, the SSW F7 AB set, and a bunch of Gandy Dancers. With six diesels all roaring, the sound was great.
At the SWFSR Club today, and worked on Balboa passenger cars. Took a break, and added an ounce of lead shot (plus two more 1-ounce plates to BLI dummy) to each unit. F7 ABBA set now negotiates frogs and gaps effortlessly. Pulled 42 cars "up" the helix with no issues. The factory BLI and Athearn-Genesis diesels definitely need extra weight for better performance.
I was going to point out the lack of joy of trains running in a helix, but its a great check for grade performance.
True! The first setup for measuring relative pulling power was to nail a section of track to an eight foot 2x4 and set it up for about a 4% grade. I then loaded up some hoppers with pennies and checked how much each engine could pull up the grade before going into wheel spin. Then I found my "dynamometer car" at an estate sale, a flat car with a 250-gram linear scale glued to it. One coupler is attached to the part where one would hang something to weigh. Now I could measure actual "tractive effort"! My two Athearn RTR F7s each could pull 110 grams before slipping. Thanks to this setup, I could also figure out that each freight car had about 2.5 grams of rolling resistance on level track (put 10 cars behind the dyno car and measured 25 grams). I was also able to confirm that my Bachmann GE 44 tonner could pull max six or seven cars before slipping on level track, especially on the turnouts. The "dynamometer car":
Operated my BLI F7AB and Athearn-Genesis F7AB with an BLI GP20 to run an ABGPBA set. They ran very smoothly together, but functions are not even close to sync (I'm about Deaf, so have horns and bells set at loud). Was about to hook to 60 freight cars and attempt helix but instead we discussed the planned next rewiring work at Cajon to Summit to begin on Thursday.
