Gradient

[J.A.M.]

Hello Mr Bachman, i was hoping you would be able to help me. I was thinking about buying an inside frame 4-4-0, but i was wondering what its hauling capabilities would be up a 1 in 20 slope (sorry, I'm British)
Cheers

[Stevelewis]

Hi  J A M ..,.,.,... ( I am  British  too)

I have  recently been installing  a  gradient on a layout.

The  thing  with 0N30 is  that  you do  require quite a  height if one  track is to  pass over  another  one
best  part  of 95mm ( nearly 4")  or  slightly  more  if  you  have  the  spark  arrester  fitted  to  Clinaxes!!

So the  gradiants in this case  need to  be quite  L O N G  !.
I have   been experimenting  with  a  1 in 25  which is  approx 9' from  start  to  summit.
I find  that  the  haulage   capacity of my 4-4-0s is  around  3 Bachmann   passenger  cars
The  Mallet (2-6-6-2)  will haul  4 Pasenger cars
The  Climaxes  & Shays  will haul slightly more!!
The  passenger  cars  are  heavier  than  the  Bachmann freight  cars,  so  obviously you will get the  locos to  haul slightly  more  freight cars  than  mentioned  above.
The gradient  mentioned  above was  set  up as  a  test  and  is  virtually  straight,  if it   was eventually to have  any curvature in it then  haulage  capacity  would be reduced.
Hope  this  helps
PS  What  part  of  the  UK  are  you in??

The

[ChrisS]

my entire layout is 4%... none of my loco's have trouble hauling a prototypical sized train up those grades..  except the porters... but then i just triple head those for fun anyway

[J.A.M.]

Cheers Stevelewis and ChrisS, that was very helpful information
And I live in Gloucestershire 
Cheers

[Stevelewis]

Not  so  far  from  me  then!!
PM  sent.