Quick consist question

G

guppyman

Member
Dec 6, 2001
114
0
16
52
League City TX
www.railimages.com
I have 2 of the same loco (LL GP38-2) and they run at greatly different speeds....

So if I want to hook em together, which one should go in front? And will it cause problems for either one- being pushed/pulled by the other?

And no- I don't want the "Those engines suck" type responses.... I know what I have. I also know that I want them to work while I have them. (Sorry- but any time I've asked any questions about these, people seem to want to tell me what junk they are. They work. They're cheap. I like that. ;) )

Thanks
 
Either way you're going to have some wheel spin, I imagine. If the faster one is the "pusher", you would reduce coupler strain, for what it's worth. Probably which one is first would have some affect on derailing also, but I'm not sure what.

You might also consider putting a resistor across the motor of the faster one to match up the speeds.

(And I assume that if you wanted to go D*C you would have said so, so I'm not even going to mention it.)
 
I have a dummy also- Actually, the way I've been running them lately is the faster, the slower, then the dummy. The reason for this is my current layout is the Woodland Scenic Scenic Ridge- 4% grade. I was looking for a good way to pull more than about 3 cars up the hill.... It works out ok like this. I was just wondering if I'm messing anything up by doing this.

My GP20 has no problems with the hill..... But these 2 do.
 
In the off-chance that you may be overloading one engine, have you removed the factory fans and super-detailed them to open fans? This would help eleviate any potential overheating.

Originally posted by guppyman
I have a dummy also- Actually, the way I've been running them lately is the faster, the slower, then the dummy. The reason for this is my current layout is the Woodland Scenic Scenic Ridge- 4% grade. I was looking for a good way to pull more than about 3 cars up the hill.... It works out ok like this. I was just wondering if I'm messing anything up by doing this.

My GP20 has no problems with the hill..... But these 2 do.
Click to expand...
 
I had two LL E8's that ran at differant speeds. I ran the together and burned one up. Now I've got a dummy.
First I'd take the motor out of the slower one,this will put less strain one the fast motor.But keep the weight, a wieghtless dummy is a pain.

By the way I've got four or five of the LL GP38-2's and I like every one of them.
 
For the first question, since cars that are pulled generally track better than cars that are pushed, I would suggest putting the faster loco first.

I had a similar problem with the older and new Life Like BL-2. I posed the question at the trains.com website and was assured that no damage would result from running the locos together.

However, I had doubts. I found the electrical equation of a DC motor on a college website. Working with the assumption that the two motors were identical, but the loco gearing was different, I concluded that there was a significant probability of overheating on the faster loco. I would suggest that you check for overheating before you run the combo for a significant length of time.

The combo should have more power than either single loco, but the faster engine will be doing more than its fair share of the work.
 
Can we consider the question this way:
Hang enough cars behind the faster engine so that it runs the same speed as the slower one. Then just put the slower one in front of it.
I think if the speed difference is too great, you should buy a third one (!!) and see which one is right. ;)
I have a 3 unit diesel with one dummy. I detailed the cab of the dummy (put a crew in) and ran it first.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom