No construction at all last night - just cleaned up the table where I was building turnouts for company arriving today. I went down to the basement, thinking I might do a bit of work on the layout, and instead just ran some trains. A couple of months ago I bought a P2K 2-10-2, and decided to test its pulling capacity. With the traction tire driver installed, it hauled 45 cars around the NP staging loop on the layout (no grades on that line), including my John Allen-style track cleaning car and half a dozen tank cars that roll like they have flat tires (those trucks are slated for replacement some day). Forty-four forty-foot cars plus loco and caboose is the maximum train size my staging yards will handle, so the hauling capacity of the 2-10-2 is just about right. Up the grade on the Frannie cutoff it hauls twenty-plus cars with no problem, which is the appproximate train length for that branch. On the milder grades of the Wyoming Mainline, it should handle around 25-30 cars. The BLI 2-8-2s will haul about five cars less.
Gee, rather than work on the layout I actually stopped and ran some trains! What's wrong with me?!
About Me
- Mark B.
- Allendale, SC
- I grew up in Wyoming, mostly living in areas served by the railroads I model. I remember standing at the window in our Cody Wyoming home, staring at night at the old Husky refinery across town. I remember the bridge across the creek and under the tracks between Powell and Cody. I remember always looking for trains as we travelled through the Wind River Canyon. And I remember my mother's last home - a mobile home in Evansville next to the Burlington mainline.
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