Marathon

I normally run a Williams F3 at our open houses  It runs from 9am to 4 pm and has done it a number of times

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

As I watch the end of the Women's Marathon in the Olympics, this thought occurred to me: what is the longest time you have run a locomotive, and what was that locomotive?

I must confess that I have never run any of my locomotives for more than 5 minutes at one time.

Maybe 10-15 minutes per train on the WVRR, Arnold.

However, I've run my 85 plus year old Lionel Standard gauge under the tree for over an hour on occasion - only turning it off when Mrs. 'Ski complained about the "noise" of tinplate on tinplate on hardwood floors.

For me it is not "noise", but music

At Christmas time in the late 40s early 50s I would run Das 726 or 2332 GGI on a modest 4 x 8 Layout under the tree for at least an hour pulling 3 Madison Cars ,I was in hog heaven.I still have These Trains.

Mikey

I play switching games for a good 2 or 3 hours with this mth railking mp15.

@bluelinec4 posted:

I normally run a Williams F3 at our open houses  It runs from 9am to 4 pm and has done it a number of times

The owner of the LHS I visit mentioned that Williams locomotives have comparably large motors. Would this make Williams engines better for long runs?

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

The owner of the LHS I visit mentioned that Williams locomotives have comparably large motors. Would this make Williams engines better for long runs?

What I have found out about Williams engines reminds me of two famous commercials

My personal record is 20 minutes continuous running as that is as long as the smoke fluid lasts on most of my little fleet and/or any room is smoked out at the high setting I use!

About 2 hours and 15 minutes before the coal bin was empty.

Did make it 21 miles though.

Took 45 more minutes to make the remaining 5-1/4 miles on fumes.

Locomotive was me 44 years ago in my last marathon.

Molly Seidel's Bronze today was awesome considering it was only her third race of that distance.

Ran Lionchief  Christmas loco on the temporary fastrack, floor next to my bed, all night last Dec just to hear it while I slept.

When we used to do train shows, the layout had a 3 track yard and a reverse loop.  We would run a train for a half hour, 15 minutes in each direction.  After pulling into the yard, it would be taken off and another train put in its place  16 trains in an 8 hour show.  We never ran the same train twice.

Rusty

I always run mine a half hour or longer. I don’t use smoke so that’s not a problem.

@RickO posted:

Having said that. Most of my H.O. trains as a kid had to "warm up" before they ran smoothly, so operating sessions were always fairly lengthy LOL!

While growing up my HO layout was in an unheated garage/basement, so I feel you on that one.  I used to wear a winter coat until the Kero-sun got it warm enough.

I had a buddy stop by today and I ran a Lionchief big boy, a Lionchief GG1, a Lionchief 2-6-4, a conventional 0-4-0, a conventional lionel trolley, a lionel Hudson 785, and a Williams 44 tonner, a Legacy GP7 Western Pacific  and lastly an MTH Aerotrain all at the same time for about 45 minutes on my layout. He said Sheesh, that’s a lot of stuff moving! Fairly large layout. 🚂 👍