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Just a thought


jimbob
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Sitting here watching the rain come down makeing plans in my head the age old problem the age old of gradients came up again. To steep and you can't get a descent length train up them etc,. But what if you had a power bogie in a carridge? Whacking a motor into say a brake van, it would be hidden and could act like a banking engine. No problem on DC and just program it with the same number as the loco on DCC. Bung a motor in a van and those long freights would never be a problem again! See those old Airfix kits in motion!!

OK so it may not be as easy as I think and my Christmas alcohol detox may be playing tricks with my mind but as l said, just a thought.

So how do l remove a bogie from an old Triang mk 1 then.

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I think it all depends on the severity of your gradients Jim and your choice of motive power. The powered bogie/chassis idea is a good one (Replica example mentioned above looks okay) but might not be the solution to all your problems. The more recent loco models are very proficient, diesels are usually twin bogie drives, and they tend to be heavier than older models leading to increased traction. If you're happy to run diesels at the head of your goods trains then you shouldn't have too much trouble.

I had problems with some steam loco's up the gradient on my old layout but that was often overcome by the addition of a small amount of weight inside the loco body. It's surprising how just a little weight can make a lot of difference. I was happy running 7 or 8 coach rakes and would likely have struggled further with any more than that.

There's also the http://www.oogardenrailway.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=941&p=14090&hilit=dcc+concepts#p14090' rel="external nofollow">DCC concepts 'powerbase' as has been mentioned on the forum before. This involves placing metal plates beneath the track and fastening magnets to the underside of any loco that has trouble working up a gradient. I'm not sure how well it would work outdoors but it does appear to work and may be worth a look.

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Don't really know why the idea came up really other than l had nothing better to do as since l realigned everything l don't have any bad gradients, although it far from level in places!

Havinging said that the grand plan does have a high and low level track involved in it so a garadient will be invokved in there somewhere!

As always the "off the shelf" soloutions seem to come at a price making me think that railway modeling is becoming a rich mans game, but thats another topic .....

Might have a tinker about and see what happens although it a back burner project at the moment and given that my scratch building skills are VERY limited maybe a non starter.

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The section of line I'm modelling has up to 1 in 90 slopes in real life and I hope on the model. Now with the little 2 coach and tank loco you'd think i have no problems up the branch line with that, but they used to shunt the carriages up the hill, rapidly reverse and put the loco on the main line and divert the now rolling back carriages into the station bay platform!!. So I am intending to motorise the carriages as my shunting skills are not that good.

Then when it come to the 15 coach military trains, there might well be a problem and I have considered fitting "black beatle" units to a carriage to assist.

I can see no problem with this as long as the controller can produce enough current.

If you are not modelling a particular place then trying to keep gradients as shallow as possible without light curves should be a priority..

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The rule does seem to be "no gradients in the garden" but I'm planning one on my new layout, on a single line, I reckon as long as the track is dry and clean it should be okay. I do have a Hornby Railfreight 47 which I fitted two power bogies in (because I could!) just in case, and I've always found the Triang 37 with it's old, incorrect, cast power bogie, and a boat load of lead, will stick to the track fairly well. Power bogies in coaches, why not, the blue Pullmans had them in the leading coaches behind the power cars!

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