Odyssey 2 and Track Grades

The factor that limits the grade is not only the speed control but the pulling power of the locomotive, not to mention overloading the motors and motor drivers.  Also, too much drag will stretch traction tires pretty quickly.

I doubt you'll get many locomotives that will do 10% grades too many times without pulling off traction tires.  Truthfully, I find that diesels do better with steep traces than any steamer, YMMV

Thank you for the response. I was concerned about the traction tires as well but I've honestly never had a layout with a grade so I'm trying to gather information. My issue is one of space (I'm sure everyone has been there). I'm restricted to O-72 but I do not have 26ft to rise the recommended 6 1/2in clearance for an overpass. In fact I'm restricted to to a 10x10 area for the time being. I was hoping that with a larger engine with Odyssey2 that there might still be a way to pull that off.

I confess to having never tried this, but I'm thinking that a 10% grade will be extreme.  I can see a 5-6% grade possibly working, but the most I've personally tried successfully is 4%.  That was no problem with a fairly long consist and a single Legacy diesel.

I have an 8x13 foot space with a longer narrow yard spur that I'm planning, so I'll be looking into how to do this as well.  I'm thinking now that I'll have a more gradual grade that goes around a side.  I'll also probably go with less than a 6.5" clearance and live with the fact that not everything will run there.  I'm thinking more along the lines of 5.5".

A 10% grade is definitely extreme and would need a substantial grade transition to avoid an excessive vertical curve. I've tried extreme grades in HO and N and motor cogging is a problem on non-flywheel locos going downgrade.

Slippage is likely on grades over about 6% unless locos have traction tires. But it looks too extreme to be appropriate for conventional trains.

5% would be a reasonable maximum for mainline trains. (Saluda grade approaches 5%). Shortline branches or spurs might go up to 8%, with short trains or single cars.

Keeping grades reasonable usually involves engineering the entire track plan for the space. If you show us your existing track plan and explain what you want in a layout, we could give feedback on that.

I don't run any electronic controls but I am interested to hear about how well the cruise control feature works, with details of train lengths, locos and grades.

I've tested a 4% grade with 25 freight cars on a dual-motored Legacy SD-80 and it had no problems with it, and no apparent issues with the traction tires.  However, that was a temporary layout test, just to see if it was possible, no long term running was involved.  I don't see grades much greater being all that practical, at least IMO.

Well, to be honest, my current layout is nothing more than an O-72 oval using 10" straight. I now have a 10x10 space I can use to finally do some creative stuff with a layout. As for what I'm trying to cram in that space, I'm trying to have the outside track be a rounded square which rises on the back-side to allow room next innermost loop pass underneath it to become an open side-wall tunnel on the other side. The inner-most loop is where the town and station would go. The picture attached is obviously not done but I promise I'm getting the full AnyRail version Tuesday and I'll update it. I'm beginning to suspect that the only way this would be doable and under 4% is raising the whole track and dropping the two inner-loops at about a 2.5% grade.

But all in all it sounds as though even if the engine were physically able to pull the cars up that steep a grade, The amount of arc in the track and space needed to smooth it out would negate the effort.