How many cars can I pull with my Lionel 4-8-4?

I have this engine and have not reached the stall or wheel slip point.

Is this for passenger or freight? It will make a difference.

Charlie

How steep are your grades?

How sharp are your curves?

How many can be pulled in a straight line is easily discernable; just try it one car added into the consist at a time. You will be able to sense when enough-is-enough. Just listen carefully and watch carefully.

However, the real trick is finding out how many - regardless of how many can be pulled down straight-tracks - can be pulled around a curve, and how wide a radius you will need before the cars will fall over when rounding the bend.

Have fun. The adventure is a big part of our hobby.

FrankM

The Legacy Reading T1, another version of the 4-8-4 Northern, reaches it's limit at around nine 18" MTH passenger cars on O72 curves.  The track is kinda' uneven, which I think is the real problem.  OTOH, I've pulled 70 freight cars with my Vision Line Big boy, including a long 2% grade, and it didn't miss a beat.

Some cars have more rolling resistance than others. Postwar cars, as a general rule, have more resistance than MPC and later cars.

UPDATE:

For all the people asking, there are no grades and I have a large O-60 loop around a 10x7 table. Also, I am running freight (boxcars, mostly) I hope this helps. 

Freight cars, probably all you can fit on the table!  You have a max of about 30 feet of track in one loop, I suspect it'll pull the 30 boxcars it'll take to fill it.

OK, thanks for the information.

That is roughly 32 feet of track. You will have no problem pulling all the freight cars you can place behind the engine. 

Sorry to be vague, but your layout is not big enough to challenge this engine assuming the freight cars are free rolling.

However, its your layout so you can do as you wish, but with that amount of track I would guess that about 10 cars is about max for visual purposes. Any more than that and it will look like the train is chasing its rear end.

Charlie

Thank you for all the advice you guys gave me! I hope you all have a great day/night! 

Your curves will be more of an issue then it takes to tax that engine 

What limits how many cars I can pull is usually not the locomotive, but rather my reverse loops and 031 curves. Depending on the size of the freight cars, my limit is 9 to 12 freight cars plus caboose. However I'm happy with that length.

I enjoy running coal dump and  oil tanker trains, especially traditional sized ones:

 Arnold

Here is video review of your engine from our own forum sponsor Eric's Trains. 

Lionel Legacy Santa Fe Northern

As you can see in the video the train is pulling 6, 18 inch cars. That is at least 9 feet of train and this engine will pull least 12 according to GRJ. My experience is that it will pull 12, 21 inch GGD cars.

The point is, even with a shortened train, you will see the front and back of the train at the same time if you go much longer on a layout with your dimensions.

Good luck, it is a very nice engine.

Charlie

Motor ability aside; less weight pulled = less wear on the gears and bushings over time . 

Fun almost always has a cost 🤔

A few years back my friend and I got this 226E (photo below) running and were wondering how it would perform.  The problem with testing was the box coupler on the tender. We adapted a gondola for the process and added some weight to it so it didn't sting-line on the curves. We had some 1 lb. lead ingots for making bullets so we added ingots until the gon stayed on the track. It took 3 lbs. of lead to do that. The 226 could pull 26 post war cars, including the gon with the weight. It made 3 or 4 trips around the flat layout. As a comparison, we hooked up a FM Trainmaster to the consist and it moved it. We built the train to 32 cars for the FM and ran it around about 2 or 3 times. At that point we considered ourselves lucky and ended the "test".

we pulled 50 cars with one back in the summer.   most all atlas cars so fairly decent amount of weight.  They are good pullers.   Wider radius the better.   Just like the real thing some of the 4-8-4 ‘s are less forgiving than others even with something like 072’s.   

Here's a pair of Legacy U-Boats pulling 115 cars.  The run included a long 2% grade.  Yes, they were working hard, but the made about 6 scale miles around before I called it quits.  I did have to put the second engine in the middle of the consist in order to reduce the load on the couplers, that was the primary train length issue.

That’s amazing! And also, for the people asking about the curves on my layout, the engine is an O-54 min. engine and I have O-60 curves. 

The wider the curves, the easier it is to pull a long train.  Curves on that run are O72 to 108, depending on the location.

Although based on the previous comments you shouldn't have any trouble pulling many cars with this particular engine (especially if you are pulling more modern cars which have 'needle point axles' = less drag), as a general rule of thumb remember to put your heaviest cars nearest the engine and your lightest cars towards the rear of the consist, to minimize the chance of a coupler coming apart - particularly at higher speeds - (which has happened to me on occasion) when you're running a long consist. Have fun and enjoy!

Adriatic posted:

Motor ability aside; less weight pulled = less wear on the gears and bushings over time . 

Which may not be available in the future.

I am pulling a rather short consist, about 8 cars including a Union Pacific CA-4 caboose. The heaviest car is a coal hopper so I will put that at the rear of the consist. The other cars I’m pulling are new reefer cars and a few newer boxcars loaded with those little barrels that Lionel sells. So it’s a pretty light consist, and I also don’t want to wear out the rubber traction tires as they might not be available in the future, but the 3751 is a popular engine and I’m sure Lionel will make if again as they’ve made it several times before, most recently was the Lionel 2019 Vol. 2 catalog. 

Just about any scale diecast Pacific or larger with a Pittman motor can pull 12 18" cars at a minimum with relative ease. Same for 21" Lionel cars. GGD cars a bit more problematic due to less free rolling trucks, at least their older cars. I know for sure my Hudsons and Niagaras can do 13. Only limiting factor is the size of your layout. The jury is out on Canon motored engines.

Pete

adkmodelrailroader26 posted:

 The heaviest car is a coal hopper so I will put that at the rear of the consist.

Why would you do that?  The heavy cars should be near the front of the consist!

In the post above by PH1975, he said to put the heaviest car near the rear of the consist. 

adkmodelrailroader26 posted:

In the post above by PH1975, he said to put the heaviest car near the rear of the consist. 

That would be incorrect!  Even real railroads know that the heavy stuff goes in front, and when they forget, they get massive derailments like the ones we see occasionally on Horseshoe Curve.

Also, he didn't really say that, time for remedial reading!

PH1975 posted:

as a general rule of thumb remember to put your heaviest cars nearest the engine and your lightest cars towards the rear of the consist, to minimize the chance of a coupler coming apart

Okay. Thanks for telling me! I will be sure to move that coal car to the front of the consist.

If you are pulling old Williams heavyweights, you might be able to pull/drag 5. Otherwise you can probably pull as many as will fit on your loop until they touch the front of the loco. 
By the way, I really want one of those Santa Fe Northern 4-8-4 locomotives. It would be perfect to pull my 6 California Limited heavyweights. 

Ah yes, my mistake. Thanks for pointing that out gunrunnerjohn and apologies to PH1975.