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.
Replies sorted oldest to newest
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.