A sanity check please chums,
being late at night and nowt on the box I thought I'd play with a plank !

rising from the bottom end at 34mm above datum ( ahem! posh way of describing the table top ! ) to about 75 mm at the top end over a bit of 55flextrack of about 80cm does this look right :
75-34 ~= 40
40/800 = 1/20 = 5%

nah, cant be cos the wee 4F has no bovver hauling 6 wee peco wagons upit
cos I think I have read that 3% +/- is what one should aim at?
Where have I gone wrong, what should I experment with on the morrow, in the cold light of day (and a google) , to be more scientific ?

Calculation looks fine to me.

My Peco wagons weigh not much more than a fly and I expect yours do too.

Would be interesting to see how steep you can make your ramp before a no go occurs.

Webbo

Nowt wrong with the maths and although 2 or 3% is suggested as ideal. I have an incline of 50mm in about 900 and everything goes up that OK.

Thanks webbo and malc,
yer, interesting !
There was a bit of a slippage at first but that was cos the thin plank (plank ! actually the side wall of a discrded chepo bookshelf ! ) was slightly bowed so the loco at the head was on a steeper bit of inline than the wagons behind, but a bit of packing soon sorted that out and returned things to a Galilean principle So I may actually, on that basis, not be far from the limit ! But thoughts for the morrow continue (well it keeps one off the streets )

Hmmm
Being as how I was getting on for 2x the usual suggested incline, and with a 4F that sometimes has a less than ideal reputation for haulage, I thort I'd better check that I wasnt having a senior moment !
Thanks chums, , ,

Slippage at first might in part or even mainly due to the loco needed to overcome its own inertia (and wagon inertia) before it gets going. You'll probably find that the loco can pull more up the slope if it can run onto the incline and not have to start on it.

What can pull what up a given incline is of major interest to me also. I've a section of track that has a 1.6% grade. I had a Farish black 5 that had a great deal of trouble pulling 6 Farish Stanier coaches up it. The loco was a tender drive and had a light weight tender with only a small space to add extra lead. Traction is all about weight over the driving wheels and the black 5 simply didn't have enough of it to pull its train along my mainline so it had to go. The 4F should do a fair better than this I expect.

I have a Kato SD40-2 (6 axle diesel) that will pull at least 17 grain hoppers up the hill by itself without problem (no traction tyres). Each hopper weighs about 50% more than a Farish mk1 coach. The Kato has a split frame and its body is mostly filled with metal. There is no substitute for weight when it comes to traction.

Webbo

Quote from: Webbo on April 23, 2015, 11:04:13 PM
inertia

Thanks for all your thoughts.
Yes very good point about inertia ! I shudav thort of that, but it was late at night over here
I chose 6 wagons for the initial experiment because my thoughts had turned to the classic Gumstump, always liked that idea, and 6 wagons would be 2 or 3 more than really needed.
More playings   experiments laters.

Quote from: Malc on April 23, 2015, 11:23:18 PM
50mm in about 900

5.5% , that is very respectable.

Perhaps instead of listing all our cars and motorbikes we should be experimenting on and listing all our locos' performances
I think we may need to co-opt a committee to spec an NGF standard variable incline 
I think some ropes pulleys and a clinometer may be needed, hmmm, there may even be a tilt app for these newfangled 'phones ?!

Quote from: MalcolmAL on April 24, 2015, 09:05:34 AM

Quote from: Malc on April 23, 2015, 11:23:18 PM
50mm in about 900

5.5% , that is very respectable.

Perhaps instead of listing all our cars and motorbikes we should be experimenting on and listing all our locos' performances
I think we may need to co-opt a committee to spec an NGF standard variable incline 
I think some ropes pulleys and a clinometer may be needed, hmmm, there may even be a tilt app for these newfangled 'phones ?!

I'll second that. For those of us who like ups and downs on our layouts such info would be useful before buying a particular loco.

Happy to engage in a discussion about how best to do this or come up with a standard test.

Webbo

I do wish they would go back to 1 in xx instead of % for inclines, much easier to understand.

Best puller I have is a Langley S15 kit on a Fleischmann chassis, ran out of coaches at 42 Farish Mk1s most on a 1:60 gradient (layout was 21'x17')

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 09:46:26 AM
I do wish they would go back to 1 in xx instead of % for inclines, much easier to understand.

Me too 
1 cubit in several is plain, % requires some math ability, just obfuscates things !
In my field of electrikery and telecomms the IEE and other bodies changed cycles per second into Hertz. Wots a Hertz evereone else asks ! So, you cant be a member of the club any more unless you have done 'our' degree course in Maxwell's equations, grrrr.
Oh dear I seem to have digressed

seriously though
Mike raises a good point for the committtee's contemplation - How to specify the load.
No,,, maybe that should be a sub clause.
The first question perhaps should be - Loco alone or Loco plus Load.

If loco alone then two possibilities, (1) an inclined plane, or (2) a string on its tail over a pulley at board edge and a suspended pan upon which to place weights.

No, , again ,, ! Firstly the committee must rule upon the advisability of stall testing, might this damage our locos ?

Nurse, nurse, he's been thinking again, pills needed

I always thought that they called it hurts because if you put your fingers across 50 Hz at 250 volts, it sure does.

Quote from: MalcolmAL on April 24, 2015, 10:39:12 AM

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 09:46:26 AM
I do wish they would go back to 1 in xx instead of % for inclines, much easier to understand.

Me too 

Am I missing something?

1% is 1 in 100
2% is 2 in 100
3% is 3 in 100

Doesn't seem hard?

How is it different to saying:

1 in 12, but I want to go up 2 units, so 2 x 12 is 24.

Numberwork either way, but at least % is easily turned into decimals and worked out on a calculator.

Cheers, NeMo

Quote from: MalcolmAL on April 24, 2015, 10:39:12 AM

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 09:46:26 AM
I do wish they would go back to 1 in xx instead of % for inclines, much easier to understand.

Me too 
1 cubit in several is plain, % requires some math ability, just obfuscates things !
In my field of electrikery and telecomms the IEE and other bodies changed cycles per second into Hertz. Wots a Hertz evereone else asks ! So, you cant be a member of the club any more unless you have done 'our' degree course in Maxwell's equations, grrrr.
Oh dear I seem to have digressed

seriously though
Mike raises a good point for the committtee's contemplation - How to specify the load.
No,,, maybe that should be a sub clause.
The first question perhaps should be - Loco alone or Loco plus Load.

If loco alone then two possibilities, (1) an inclined plane, or (2) a string on its tail over a pulley at board edge and a suspended pan upon which to place weights.

No, , again ,, ! Firstly the committee must rule upon the advisability of stall testing, might this damage our locos ?

Nurse, nurse, he's been thinking again, pills needed

[smg id=24347 type=preview align=center width=400]

When one has been used to using 1 in x,  and rail gradient posts are 1 in xxx and knowing how steep that is, having to stop and think that 12% is about 1:8, and having been forced into all things metric, measures and money, one begins to wonder what next are they going to meddle with?

Everybody having to learn a common language, not be allowed to wear national dress, or prepare national cuisine?

So it makes it easier to have everybody in the world singing from the same (metric) hymn sheet, but where does one draw the line?

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 01:55:32 PM
When one has been used to using 1 in x,  and rail gradient posts are 1 in xxx and knowing how steep that is, having to stop and think that 12% is about 1:8, and having been forced into all things metric, measures and money, one begins to wonder what next are they going to meddle with?

Last time I went driving, gradients were on the signs as a percentage. So surely road sign gradients are more familiar than railway line posts? I know we're modelling trains, but are you sure more of us a train drivers than car drivers???

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 01:55:32 PM
Everybody having to learn a common language, not be allowed to wear national dress, or prepare national cuisine?

Not sure I see a connection here. Decimalisation of numerical quantities has been going on for centuries, and generally, in a world that uses computers to do calculations, that's a good thing.

Quote from: Dorsetmike on April 24, 2015, 01:55:32 PM
So it makes it easier to have everybody in the world singing from the same (metric) hymn sheet, but where does one draw the line?

Challenge for you: explain why a non-decimal system be better than a metric system? There actually are some situations where it is, and I like explaining them when teaching history of science classes. But most people who argue against decimalisation and metrification do so because they are familiar with the Old System and don't like the New System. They find it hard to actually justify that intellectually. But I'm going to invite you to do so, Dorset Mike!

Cheers, NeMo