Quote from: trainman203 on December 15, 2023, 06:01:11 PMOh. Jeffrey. About diesels pulling better than steam engines. At the old club, my Bachmann consolidation would pull 18 cars up a 2% grade on about a 36 inch radius curve, no slipping. On my current home layout, my Bachmann decapods will get about 12 or 14 cars up a 2% tangent. I don't have any diesels to compare this to, but I've been pretty satisfied with their tractive effort.
My experience on a layout with 4% grades and 18r curves has been that the 0-6-0s like the Jingle Bell Express will pull about 3 cars up the grade. The Alco 2-6-0 does slightly better at 5 cars. My best pulling steam, a Roundhouse old time 2-8-0, will pull 12. By contrast, My Bachmann diesels range from the tiny Plymouth switcher at 8 cars, to the GP40s which can pull more than 20 cars. Every one of my Atlas diesels will also pull 20 cars.
These tests were performed with a test train made up entirely of Bachmann Silver Series 40' gondolas, to take the randomness out of the equation. My 4% grade is about 20 cars long, so adding more to the train wouldn't make a difference because part of it would always be on a downgrade. The Silver series cars were chosen because they are free rolling, and thus present a best case scenario for pulling power. The railroad they are running on consists entirely of hand laid code 83 rail. I am not sure what, if any, effect using code 100 rail like EZ track would have on pulling power. I suspect due to the slightly larger contact area between wheel and rail it might slightly increase traction, but not by much.
On a related note, I have stayed away from older locomotives with traction tires, finding them to be underpowered with the rubber tires an atttempt to compensate for their poor design. I've also found that when a traction tire locomotive does spin its wheels under load, it has a tendency to bounce itself off the track. In short, they are not worth the aggravation to me, especially when newer locomotives with all wheel drive are available on Ebay for a similar price. Know what you buy, before you buy.