How fast is fast?

We run at MTH scale speeds with the limits on the CL&W being 79 mph passenger and 49 mph freight.

I kind of agree. It gets a little boring watching a Big Boy running at 5 mph for 5 minutes. Big Boys were designed to high ball long freights.  I’m not suggesting postwar fast, but a little speed would be nice. 

MTH Premier Southern Pacific GS4 Northern with 6 "Golden State" passenger cars in tow. Running at an indicated 80 smph on the DCS remote.

I like fast trains

People may run their trains at scale speeds, but it's boring. Watching it creep along I tend to find myself drifting off. On the other hand I in no way am advocating running trains like it's the Indianapolis 500!   But I do think a little more speed would be more interesting.

Lou1985 posted:

MTH Premier Southern Pacific GS4 Northern with 6 "Golden State" passenger cars in tow. Running at an indicated 80 smph on the DCS remote.

Faster than a speeding bullet

more powerful than a locomotive

look! Up in the sky!

It's a bird! It's a plane!

It's...

Scale 60-70 MPH???? Better keep an eye on your trains so when they un couple you don't ram the Locomotive into the back of the train. Nick

Approximately 54 smph on upper loop. 

1 lap = approximately 14ft covered in 8.5seconds

98.8 ft covered in 60 seconds. 

98.8ft x 48 = 4,742.4 scale ft covered per minute 

4,742.4 scale feet / 88 = 53.89 smph

clem k posted:

I like fast trains

Awesome! I’d love to see the water scoop spray affect at speeds like this. 

JD2035RR posted:

clem k posted:

I like fast trains

Awesome! I’d love to see the water scoop spray affect at speeds like this. 

WOW Amazing!!!! Also nice track work. Nick

I prefer to actually see my train passing and not watch a blur.

Rusty

My Max speed is at 55 SMPH on my MTH Stuff, 75 Speed Steps on my Legacy stuff and 20 Speed Steps on my TMCC stuff. However, I usually go a little slower than the max speeds.

It's true that in the transition era, some passenger trains attained speeds around 100 mph.  If you have a layout with gradual curves and straightaways long enough to make that look convincing, congratulations!  You also have an abundant choice of O-gauge motive power going all the way back to 1938.

The rest of us running with sharp curves on a couple of 4x8s are better served by locos that start smoothly, will run for several feet at less than 10 mph, and probably top out around 60 mph or less.  Have you ever seen the video feed from one of those X-10 cameras mounted on a flat car?  Even 45 mph looks like an amusement ride!  There are already plenty of fast-running locos in the world.  Let's please not give the manufacturers an excuse to make more.  No speed control, no gimmicks.  Gear ratio of 30:1 or bust!!

Don't know the scale MPH, but this recent video shows Postwar trains on my renovated layout (scenery still needs work) running fast, but not too fast, according to my eye:

Arnold

Clem, a very convincing speed from a Niagara.

JD nice speed I think 

Arnold I think the GG1 is on schedule, the fast freight just a tad fast.

I like fast moving freight trains.That is the way the ran where I live.I once talked to an engineer.He told me that when pulling of town he noticed it up to 65 mph and left it there.The Seaboard Coast Line could really had them moving out.And so did southern.Any way here my train high balling.If you look you will see my cat chessie.

Don't have such videos handy, but if you've got a tape measure and a timepiece showing seconds you can set up your own speed trap:

Number of inches traveled in 2.5 seconds=O scale MPH

---PCJ

I think the answer to my question mostly relates to the size of the layout.  On a small one it is somewhat difficult to run scale 60 mph because you wind up where you started a few seconds later.  However on the larger layout it feels right to run at higher speeds so that the engines, especially the steam engines, capture the excitement as they did for us that are old enough to remember them.

Thanks to those who posted.

During the era I model on the roads I model with my scale trains, speed was the watchword and the goal.  The RRs were emerging from the disastrous drag freight era and beginning to feel the competition of the automobile.  So my through freights and passenger trains run at a pretty good clip per management's orders.

That said, there are way freights and local passenger jobs that move along much more sedately, again per the SOPs of the time and place.

A restrictive speed limit governs yard, operations, of course, and for the same reasons as on the prototype:  sharp turns, lots of switches, and short distances among crowded tracks.

A good 40% of my mainline is hidden, so the sense of compression which speed gives is reduced to a minimum.

Now, when it comes to my MARX and MPC running, well, then the goal is to keep the trains on the tracks but give the horses their rein!  Nobody ever bought MARX to creep!

Each to his own, naturally.

When locomotives became capable of slow-speed running in our 3RO world, it got and kept a lot of people into the 3RO world who would have otherwise grown tired of all the childish (pardon me) Wheee! "railroading"; these would be the Hi-Railers, like me. Hi-Railers also tend to find the deepest pockets of all the sub-species of 3RO'ers. There are times, though, that I wish some of them would speed up that high-speed loco (we get it - it'll creep; okay, okay) where appropriate, and creep it - where appropriate

But - "scale speed" is the speed which the train is supposed at that place and time on the RR/layout. Unless you are moving through a yard or such, or hauling a massive number of non-expedited cars - as in a long coal drag - the train should move at a reasonable "track speed" rate. Now, the 80 smph Daylight above is running at a very typical Daylight 80 mph - but it looks too fast in a layout setting; 50 - 60 smph would probably convey the speed better, even if the real train sometimes went faster, which it did.

"Scale speed" is not slow, nor is it fast - it is accurate per an appropriate RR situation. Why there are not more model "speedometer cars" offered (wouldn't that be a lovely reason to offer a dynamometer car?, which has never shown up in 3RO), I do not know. They could be used anywhere, Pre-War to Right-Now.

I still have absolutely no use for 200 smph toy trains; I didn't have much use for it when I was a kid, either - it looked stupid. In the 50's, my broken-in 2055 Hudson wouldn't creep at 3 smph, but I didn't run it wide open much, either. Scale models? No, but much PW and some late Pre-War (263E, for example) Lionel equipment was a convincing evocation of railroading, before everything became bright colors, shiny, and 2-ounce cars.

Ideal speed: As fast as physically possible without flipping off the curves, and then some.

But for real, this is the case for most of my clockwork engines, as they have a very rudementary system of speed regulation, and normally require some added carriages, which i dont have for them

Berkshire posted:

Ideal speed: As fast as physically possible without flipping off the curves, and then some.

But for real, this is the case for most of my clockwork engines, as they have a very rudementary system of speed regulation, and normally require some added carriages, which i dont have for them

 

Clockwork looks like a good time   Reminds me of some fundraiser events I've been to such as mouse races, simulated horse races, etc.  Hang in past the 1:25 mark for some crashes.

While I have personally run some of my diesels at 70-80 smph, I normally keep them 40 or lower.  I have had consists uncoupling and I usually run 2 or 3 trains per loop with 6 loops currently, keeping 14 trains from running into another gets rather challenging.  The more trains I run simultaneously the slower I run an individual train (up to 40 smph for two down to 10 - 15 smph for 4 on a single loop.)  My average speed is usually between 20-30 smph for the diesels and 15 to 20 for the steamers.  I also prefer to have the loops on the same level run at least 10 smph different so that you do not have the same image repeated per loop.

UP 844 at speed step 150... 

UP 844

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Don't know the scale MPH, but this recent video shows Postwar trains on my renovated layout (scenery still needs work) running fast, but not too fast, according to my eye.

 

Same here.  All looks good according to my eye and I go as fast or slow as I want as long as I don't crash by going too fast on my 036 curves.

JD2035RR posted:

Berkshire posted:

Ideal speed: As fast as physically possible without flipping off the curves, and then some.

But for real, this is the case for most of my clockwork engines, as they have a very rudementary system of speed regulation, and normally require some added carriages, which i dont have for them

 

Clockwork looks like a good time   Reminds me of some fundraiser events I've been to such as mouse races, simulated horse races, etc.  Hang in past the 1:25 mark for some crashes.

 

Well, I don't know about anyone else but I am speechless...and dizzy

I grew up near the Burlington "Race Track" and the Santa Fe transcon. I'm use to seeing freight trains run 40-60 mph and passenger trains run 60-80mph, so that's how I run my trains, to imitate real life. Most of my stuff will probably go 150+ smph around the 072 curves on my layout but there is no point in running that fast. I'm sure as heck running that Daylight GS4 at 80 mph, because that's what it would actually run .

Locomotive 999, pulling a consist of Lionel tinplate left the rails at 90 mph and hit a chair leg with considerable force. 

Fortunately the chair is rattan and #999 is quite sturdy. No injuries were reported.

No wonder so many eBay locomotives have broken cow catchers.

That picture actually explains a lot, like why my IVES clockwork engine has a broken cowcatcher, and why my 25 doesn't even have one anymore....

If those kids played with the trains as I did as a child, than just a broken cowcatcher would be generous