Which conventional engine do you put in front? The faster or the slower one?

personally I'm had never tried either way but I would suspect its better to put the faster one in the front because if you put the slower one  res in the rear that's faster I would bet money you would  eat traction tires while the faster engine is trying  to push the front engine faster and cant so it would chew up the traction tires or even possibly derailing to push so hard again the front engine which would be running slower then the rear one!

FWIW,  IMHO

Alan

Personally I just wouldn't as it would put a strain on the faster engine, either way.

I multiple unit GP's and SW's and I just get them both going forward otherwise don't pay any attention.

Thanks for the thoughts.  I believe that it’s easier to pull a wagon than to push it so I put the faster one in front. If there’s a train engineer out there it would be interesting to get their prospective from driving trains from the front vs the back. 

If they have a significant speed difference when running, I'd start by "tuning" the faster one with a diode pair or two in series with the motor(s) to get them closer in speed.  If you have a large speed difference, whichever way you run them one will be straining and probably chewing up traction tires.

I agree with everyone, if the engine is a little faster, put it in front. If it is a race car don't couple it to a turtle.

The only time that I can recollect that I've done this is with a pair of post-war 218 Alco's.  So there weren't traction tires to take into account.

I remember seeing these in the Lionel showroom as a kid.  I wondered why the red of the engines were red, but that they were matched with the blue striped 027 Santa Fe passenger cars.  I thought that it just wasn't right.

Alan

I would always  put the slower one in front, less strain on the couplers.