How important is loco haulage to you?

[Capri_sam]

Haulage is a funny one for me - I like long trains but I've got a very hilly layout (and it gets hillier with the seasons as I'm in the loft of a very old wood framed house) with a couple of 1-60s and a 1-50 drag.

As a result I only expect with any loco to be able to run trains of around four carriages for tank engines and six for tender locos (double that in 4-wheel wagons). But I rarely get what I want! Sometimes I'll accept less quite happily - my dapol prairie just gets one B-set instead of two and my M7s are resigned to two maunsells each, but sometimes it really annoys me - my new tooling Black 5, Merchant Navy and Castle will only manage 4 carriages apiece and it's infuriating! The biggest offender is obviously the 9f, which on my layout will manage 6 four wheel wagons. I'm in the process of bull frog snotting it and if that doesn't work it's off to Ebay.

On the other hand, my Schools will take 12 maunsells each without missing a beat, and my 28xx has managed 40 wagons and could have taken more, but I got nervous about throwing a tyre. For hauling big trains, I've got a few old Poole models and some Union Mills.

[Les1952]

On my little OO shunting plank there are two sequences involving passenger trains - bearing in mind there isn't a run-round loop.

Loco hauled train.   1... runs in from fiddle yard.  2.  loco uncouples and runs to head shunt.  3.  Loco runs from headshunt to water crane in shed yard.  4.  Loco runs from lay-by siding and attaches to other end of passenger train then waits.   5.  Loco from shed road runs to headshunt.  6.  Loco from coal road runs forward and reverses into shed road.  7.  Loco from water crane runs forward then reverses into coal road.  8.  Passenger train departs for fiddle yard.  9.  Loco from headshunt runs through platform and reverses into lay-by siding.  Sequence can now re-start.

Diesel railcar    1.... runs in from fiddle yard.  2.  waits.  3.  departs for fiddle yard. Sequence can now re-start.

I wonder which of these sequences is more interesting for the exhibition punter watching the layout.......

Les

[njee20]

Under instruction of my 2 year old when playing, I discovered that Dapol 67s will haul 20 silver bullets and 18 MJAs, quite formidable! Shame their 66s can't emulate that!