With a tip of the hat, and apology if needed, to Scrapiron Scher: his recent thread, Forty five, asked about an A-B-B-B-A F3 set up with twelve passenger cars. Apparently that many F3s was not done in the real world, but the eight-year old inside me thought that was in no way a reason to stop a really good idea. Hence, the "Super-Duper Chief" with six Warbonnet F3s (A-B-B-B-B-A) and fourteen shiny aluminum passenger cars - the longest I could put together. It an incredibly cool train to look at - over 25 feet long, wrapping around the entire "big" end of my layout. My wife say it is her favorite ever.
It is also indisputably the biggest pain to run I have ever seen. With four Pullmor motors, two sound cars, and fourteen lighted passenger cars it draws 4.4 amps just idling. I turned off the lights in a few cars where i can do that but that only got the current draw at idle down to about 3.8. So, even with a light touch on the throttle and an artful push of the hand on the lead engine to help , the red-light-of-impending-breaker-action blinks as its starts out, the I have to throttle back slightly, bend down so I can read the meter well, and keep it right at 10 amps. It proceeds around my layout until it gets to the 35 foot uphill climb at Raton Pass (just under 2%), whereupon enough throttle to keep speed steady trips the breaker. I have to run it up to really high speeds (not easy either) so it enters like a rocket, then keep the throttle right at the 10 amp limit on the meter as it climbs, and slows, leaving the top at a crawl. This is one train that demands to be driven - I could not find a single throttle position where it would cruise around the layout without adjustment and not either trip the breaker or slow to a stall for not enough power: I have to stand at the control and constantly adjust the throttle and watch the meter. The fun factor isn't helped by my having to lean down in order to see the meter. I tried to get a video, however short, of it moving but operating the throttle and the camera was, well impossible. So the short one below just shows it idling (very cool sound, too, with the two sound cars, one MTH, one Lionel operating simulatanelously, even at idle. Whatever its lack of prototypical accuracy and difficulty in running, it looks so good here.
Here is idling.
Oh, yes: I did try deleting one of the powered A units and replacing it with a dummy A, thus reducing the number of motors and their hunger. But not then the remaining engines are clearly struggling to pull the train - not going to abuse them like that.
