traction

[smf]

  My diesil engines will go up my 4% incline, but the steam engines spin and don't go up the incline.  What can I do to sovle this problem.
 

                    Stephen Forte

[richg]

You can try some Bullfrog Snot. I have heard it works quite well.

Rich

[ACY]

Double head your steam locos or reduce the incline or buy better pulling (usually a metal boiler helps a lot) steam locos.

[richg]

I agree, 4 percent is quite exteme but take a look at the below link.

http://tinyurl.com/4nknuh3

Rich

[Doneldon]

smf-

Four percent is a very steep grade, steeper than any real railroads. In fact, there were very few places with such steep grades even in the earliest days of railroading.

It's not a big surprise that your diesels make it but not your steamers. The diesels have much smaller wheels and probably eight are powered. Your steamers have larger wheels, which translates to less traction, plus part of the weight of steamers is carried by non-powered wheels. Also, the physics of steam versus diesel locos means that steamers pay a bigger penalty on grades.

So, what can you do? Well, ACY's idea will probably work but you may not be able to MU your locos. You can add weight to your steamers, but don't overdo it. I wouldn't add weight beyond the point that your loco draws 50% of the current it draws in a stall. You can "double the hill" but that might not appeal to you or you might not have a track plan which allows you to do so. You can try the Bullfrog snot; it will likely help. Or...

You can lessen your grade. Even the 12" to the foot railroads did this whenever possible. Sometimes they built steep grades to get a line built quickly but spent plenty of money later to reduce the grades. The Santa Fe, for example, literally spend millions to get some of their trains off of the three-percent grades of Raton pass which they had completed only a few years before. This was at the cost of hundreds of miles of new track being built by a railroad which was in serious financial trouble already due to the enormous cost of building the Raton line. But for the infusion of new money from an east coast syndicate they would have lost the railroad. And not only that, they have had two subsequent major projects to ease Raton and the grades on the longer main.

Whatever you choose to do, good luck!
                                                                                -- D

[jward]

interesting....

i have a 4% grade on my layout and my roundhouse 2-8-0 pulls 7 cars up it. what kinds of steamers aren't climbuing the hill?

[Terry Toenges]

Maybe find steamers with traction tires like Bachmann's old time 4-4-0?