Lionel new big boy pulling up three percent grade

Depends on how heavy the cars are, what kind of cars, metal? plastic? passenger? box cars? depends on if its straight or curves on the grade. I think it would be able to do it no problem regardless, if your pulling 16 21" passenger cars that are metal, ehhh one way to find out..

Hi it also depends of you're pulling up grade on tighter curves, the tighter the curve  the cars can pull off the track inward and cause a derailment on the curves!

Alan

@Ron Casamento posted:

Can the new Lionel big boy safely pull 16 cars up a three percent grade? Secondly if yes, how many cars could it pull up a three percent grade. The grade is about twelve feet long.

If we're talking about the Vision Line Big Boy, sixteen cars is a piece of cake unless they're filled with lead!  With the 2014 version of the Vision Line Big Boy, I had it pulling a mixed freight of 70 cars, including a long 2.5 percent grade on Harry Henning's basement layout, it didn't break a sweat.

Here's a smaller Legacy Mallet pulling 54 tank cars, and I have a 2.5% grade, it's also not even working hard.  I later added another 20 cars and it didn't change the running at all, just kept right on chugging.

Thanks everyone for your input. I have some smooth 0-72 curves, so I think I’m going forward with the 3 percent grade. Thanks Gunner for the cool video. I have pulled forty cars with my big boy, but that was on a flat run.

@Ron Casamento posted:

Thanks everyone for your input. I have some smooth 0-72 curves, so I think I’m going forward with the 3 percent grade. Thanks Gunner for the cool video. I have pulled forty cars with my big boy, but that was on a flat run.

Yep, on a flat run you can pull lots of cars.  However, the big articulated steam locomotives have the weight to pull a lot of rolling stock, even on mild inclines.  That Mallet ended up pulling around 70 cars around the same circuit without any issues. The limitation is typically the drive motor, and I've seen the plastic dogbone driveshaft fail as well.

I will confess, if I were inclined to really push the limits of my big steam, the ones that haven't already gotten a Pittman motor upgrade would get one before I really loaded them up.  I don't trust the crappy Canon motors to not cook my expensive RCMC boards.

When I do the Pittman upgrades, I'll likely tap @harmonyards for a flywheel mod to install one of these nice stainless driveshafts with real universals.  This one is one that Pat did for my Yellowbelly upgrade.  It's a smooth running upgrade!

Thanks Gunner

While I don't have a Lionel Big Boy, I do have a degree from the School of Hard Knocks...one class from which involves track grades and their disappointments...

...IOW, 'vertical' track transitions at the bottom and top of the grade.  They can be pretty feisty towards O3R steam engines with pointy pilots hovering mere millimeters above a current-carrying center rail (bottom transitions) or rigid frames bearing 4, 5,...or even 6! driving axles (top transitions)...or so I've learned.

Now, my simple understanding of the 1:1 realm of articulated steam locomotives is that they're designed for additional 'horizontal' flex to maintain best possible traction effort...which helps the 1:48 version thereof deal with O72 curves.

But, to the OP's question and track design, what, indeed, happens at the top and bottom vertical transitions of a 3%-in-12ft grade wrt an articulated engine...like the Big Boy??  Does it have 'enough' vertical flex to deal with grade transitions?

BTW, my own challenge in this realm was with an MTH 2-10-4 on a 2% grade, with approaching O72 curves top and bottom. 

KD