Finally found DCC locomotives with guts.
#1
Photo 
My home layout is still DC only and will remain that way because it was built mainly for switching, but my club of course is DCC. At the club, the Livingston Model Railroad Club in the basement of teh old Northern Pacific Depot in Livingston, MT, we have a pretty hefty grade of two and a half percent. I did pick up a few DCC locomotives, but they were real wimps when it came to pulling a decent train up the grade.

Finally managed to get a Walthers Mainline F-7 A&B unit. These are some real horses. The grade on my home layout is also around two and a half percent. My main DC fleet is the original Atlas Alco RS units with the Kato drive. They can easily handle 14 to 16 cars on the grade. An Atlas Gold DDC was lucky to be able to pull ten up the grade. The same holds true at the club. 

The Walthers F-7's easily pulled a 25 car train up the grade. We also like to pull a track cleaning car in all of the trains that are running and the Wlathers cars we use probably weigh as much as three standard cars. Here's a video of the F-7's running around the club layot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvXXDzw6mLU

Since this video was taken, I managed to find an additional F-7A unit. Had 45 cars behind it and they handled the grade without a sweat. Here's a shorter train with the three power units.

[Image: wJdyQJ3]
https://imgur.com/a/wJdyQJ3
Video Tour of the Logan Valley - <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiNqrkq9xYY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiNqrkq9xYY</a><!-- m -->
Reply
#2
That is really neat!!! Glad you found something that would work
Looks fantastic!!
~~ Mikey KB3VBR (Admin)
~~ NARA Member # 75    
~~ Baldwin Eddystone Unofficial Website

~~ I wonder what that would look like in 1:20.3???
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)