Back when I first got back into tinplate, I remember seeing some pictures in
club magazines, maybe TTOS, of "train races", "hill climbs", and "tractor pulls"
(maximum cars a loco could pull). Turning pages in a model magazine today, I notice an article on grades, and how a grade over 1% was too steep for HO steam locos with 30 cars (grade had curves in it, too) . (it was also mentioned that 4%, a narrow gauge prototype grade, LOOKED too steep on a model railroad). I remember the old articles mentioned AMT diesels as the champions of the time as 3 rail pullers. I also remember hearing about "Magnetraction" when I was a kid, but that term I never see any more. In scale-oriented magazines I saw articles about adding weight to locos so they would haul more cars.
I see a lot of photos of three rail railroads that I bet have fairly steep grades...
more that 1%?
Out of the factory box, what locos can today: 1. pull the most cars 2. climb the steepest grade, and 3. run the fastest..like NYC's 1890's #999 with a couple of passenger cars?
Can the model articulateds do what the real ones could...haul a longer train,
or do the extra moving parts burden the motor? Does double heading work
in the model, and do people add weight to 3 rail locos, for pulling, not racing, or does that burn out the motors?
