I tested one of my Lionchief Plus locos today for its scale speed as a function of throttle setting on its remote. The results are in the table below.
Comments, notes, caveats and such:
I got the results by timing the loco after a ten foot running start over a twenty-foot long section, taking three readings at each speed level.
- I measured fourteen distinct speeds settings - fifteen when you count zero as a speed. Since this is a digital world, I strongly suspect there are actually sixteen speeds, and I indicate with a questin mark where I am pretty certain the missing speed level goes. See note below for why I think it is missing.
- When I say throttle position, I am not talking about the "notches" or detents I feel when I turn the throttle wheel, but actual discrete speeds I see when I timed the loco over a measured distance. The notches or detents are very apparent and easy to feel - the wheel wants to stop at one of them and does not want to stay in between them. That said, these physical otches or detents where the wheel will stay do not have a one-to-one correspondence with actual speed increases of the loco. For example, straight up throttle gives zero speed (idle), but so does the first detent I feel either way, forward or reverse. When I go forward more, the first two detents I feel on my 1856 (it was a LC+ Hudson) give the same measured speed (the first level listed) in forward or reverse. After that, through several speed levels, each additional detent gives a higher speed, until I reach speed 20 mph - two different detents give that. I can move the wheel into a halfway mark bjust beyond the second of those two where I can hear the chuffing increase a bit to what I think was probably 26 mph, but I could not get it to stay there and I could not both hold the remote with it there between detents and operate my stopwatch, so - no results there.
- I measured some speed levels backwards and forwards and got no difference.
- This is a very non-linear and much appreciated staggering of speeds: the first five speeds are all well below 10 mph and allow for very good control when switching, etc. . The top two are too fast for me and i could care less there is 15 mph difference between them.
- I played with my other LC+ loco, (a B&O Pacific), and it goes the exact same speeds, at least for the first five speed levels which was all I tested since I was getting identical results.
- The tests above were done with a ZW-L powering the track at an indicated 16 volts on its voltmeter. I repeated the tests for the first four speed levels at 12 volts and got the exact same results, which surprised me: I expected it to go slower but not run as smoothly at lower voltage.
