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We set a record last night on the EMRRC last night. Open house was slow with only 5 members and 2 guests. So at the end of the day One of the members brought out his "coal drag"
the rule was the train had to completly pass a marker 2 times without assistance or derail.
the drag was as follows
3 locos -- 99 cars -- 1st helper loco -- 80 cars --2nd helper loco -- 101 cars -- 2 cabosse. the train did 1 full complete lap of our 10 scale mile layout in 28,1/2 min. the train was measured at 2.1 scale miles long.
Here are some pics and a map of out layout. the aera of the map is in the top of the pic . at a few times the train was well over 360 deg with no helix!
Now that is a coal drag!! Does your club have a standard for wheel sets or for following the NMRA car weight recommendations? It's obvious all the engines and rolling stock are carefully maintained as well as the club paying close attention to all track work. Very, very nice job! Have you called The Guiness Book yet?
no calls to Guiness...just down having some fun on a slow night. the club is a little lax about wheel sets because 95% run metal anyways. we have Jr members that cant afford all the nice things in model trains. However if we have a member that always brings junk down we ask that they up grade their stuff so that they dont hold up the layout or cause other members running any issues. track work is very good. out of the few clubs I have ran on I can say the EMRRC has the best trackwork. I can run 100 car trains all day for open house and not have one derail. only place we may see a problem is in yards with older track that sees little use.
Here is a better pic at a diffrent location. also shown on this map.
I have been a member for a little over a 1 1/2 years. lots of progress has been made in my short time there. If I recall we have about 160 members? We also have had about 10 new members join that like to work on growing the club as much as running trains. We have some members that enjoy the layout work and others that maintain the clubs basic needs such as keeping it clean and fresh for our visitors.. Lately Scenery, track work, painting of the walls and floor, DCC electrical. etc. are always getting worked on. Personaly I have been real busy working on scenry and adding lights to the layout. I have been rebuilding a rock quarry and a new town aera in the newest addition of the layout.
hmmm, i guess it was quite some time ago - July of last year (goodness, time flies). was really impressed with photo background in the "farmers cooperative" area. i see that you guys kept to the same level of detail. quarry area i don't remember, must be new.
can you explain whats going on in the last picture of lower level (i see some red lights and numbers 5 and 6 there) on the left. i thought it was planned as second level
those panels are for Block Control. We run DC and DCC at the same time. Altho myself and most other members only run DCC there are still a few that resist changing to DCC. the panels you see to the left are for our single track aera of blocks 5 and 6, Block 6 has a passing siding and thats why you can see 2 lights on block 6 panel (one for the main the other for the siding) the numbers show in my map pic I included are old block locations, I should note the Block numbers have changed over the years with additions to the layout. We run a total of 6 cabs. Cabs 1-5 are reserved for DC, cab 6 is for DCC. this is how we run both DC and DCC. My self and many others have voiced opinions about changing to DCC only but a few older members board members seam a little fearfull that we may louse membership because of it.? The good thing is regardless of the DC/DCC arguements, we have a great club the way it currently works! We have a 6? track storage under the yard, to the right of the pick under the main Yard(along that 90' long wall) we can park 80-100 car trains under there if we plan to run the next day.
Well the train made it around the layout (10 scale miles) with no issue so im sure we could have added more cars. I think this record set the most amount of cars pulled but not the longest train overall length. The hoppers were a mix of 30'-40' cars. We have one member that runs a modern BN train thats almost as long as this coal drag but with 80 less cars as the modern cars are allot longer. the placement of helper units makes a huge diffrence.. I would guess 50-100 more cars max but who knows?
Atlas Tranmasters all DCC/sound. cool to hear them all working and reving up and down as they were pushing and pulling...and yes the Locos owner had to adjust the speed settings to get them perfect. Early in the day he had 2 at the rear pushing to fast and was causing him derail issues. he adjusted them and then set them back out to make the lap. I think the fastest they ran was 20 scale MPH and that was up on that long straight... We have a one member that runs his modern BNSF coal train with a powered DPU. if the layout is not busy it runs fine all day. if someone shorts out it can be a big problem if the rear unit keeps pushing or just stops!
Old thread but, I had a 239 car coal drag today at our club.I spent nearly 2 hours just fine tunning the loco's. 3 kato sd80 macs and 2 athearn sd70 macs. 90% of the cars were bethgons and the rest were rd-5's and 14 panel. It was a blast to do. It is a club record as well. I also hold the club record with a 165 car train and only 1 engine. both of them were a sight to see.
