Hi Gary, On the first page Ben said the trains would probably need one loco per 10 cars which would be fine, 3 on the front and 3 in the middle for a 60 car train would be fun to operate. I'll certainly mock up a loop and approach before building to see how and if it will work reliably, it would be time well spent considering the amount of total work that goes into a layout. I'll have to visit the local club and see if anyone has enough locos and cars and is willing to try the experiment first though :>) Regards, Dave Branum
Hi Dave - Wow, sounds like it's going to be a great layout! I've modelled a small section of the pass (from the 4th crossing of Tehachapi Creek to tunnel 10) with alot of compression dictated by the space I had for the layout. My loop is a 25" radius, so I made the vertical over tunnel 9 as low as I could to minimize the grade. I can run 40 car trains up the grade w/ 4 engines (as long as at least 3 of them are Kato's - say what you want, but they pull the best by far IMHO), but they're working. It also depends on the type of cars -- kind of the opposite of real life, the manifests are quite a bit lighter than a fully loaded Alan Curtis intermodal train! The weak spot on my layout is over 3% - the westward approach to my loop. Right now it's a non-prototypical location, since my layout is a loop, this is the stretch between my Modesto scene and tunnel 10. I can't run as long of trains going this direction, so I'd concur w/ the others to keep the grade around 2% if you can. I'm really looking forward to seeing your layout develop. I've got a long term plan to do alot more of the pass by adding on to my layout and taking over the whole room...but for now I'm enjoying my slice of CA in Ohio .
I've been wanting to try exactly that type of train at the club, I just haven't yet managed to get six good locos to the point where decoders are installed and they are adequately speed matched. If I do this soon, I'll try to post comments. Making a mock-up is certainly a great idea.
Hi Dave, Mine might be just a great dream :>) The more I think about it the more it seems like I'd never be able to amass enough rolling stock for the design. I have plenty of space and could build the track and scenery pretty easily but I'm not sure I could ever get enough locos and cars? I've been experimenting with N scale for a couple of years and only have one loco and sixty cars now, I'd estimate the layout would require about 30 locos and maybe 500 cars to run a decent schedule of SP and ATSF trains? I've already got enough O scale stuff to build a decent shortline layout in the same space so I might just go with the flow. Your layout came out really nice, the scenery is very well done and captures the area quite well. Regards, Dave Branum
