Garden Railway Forum

Just under 2km

Anyone fancy emulating it on their railway?

Rik

I saw that on the Beeb yesterday and thought much the same!
It is weird watching the one train going in about three or four different directions at the same time !

"Due to short platforms at xxx please travel in the front 4 coaches."

ge_rik wrote: ↑Sat Nov 05, 2022 3:26 pm
Anyone fancy emulating it on their railway?

You've got me thinking... To do this, trains must have been pulled in from all over the RhB network? So, what if we pool the resources of our virtual garden railway network? How long a train could we make together?

Like the real thing, it'd need to be just narrow gauge passenger vehicles (let's include full passenger brakes, for luggage, and the most spartan of workmen's carriages), but let's assume that we're attempting this on a dual 32/45mm line, and are happy to use paperclips to couple incompatible stock...

If I scrape the barrel to include stored stuff I rarely use, burn the midnight oil to finish my current carriage project, and fix the dodgy axleboxes on a 4-wheeler, I can start the ball rolling with 9 bogie carriages, and 10 four wheelers.

I've done some VERY rough back of a fag packet calculations, and worked out that the average 16mm/G scale bogie carriage is 550mm long, and a 4-wheeler is 200mm - mine are shorter, some will be longer, but we'll go with that to keep life simple. That makes my train 6950mm long, or 434 feet in real life. It's mostly pretty basic, but it includes a buffet car, several first class compartments and the "Gladstone" observation car, so there's a touch of glamour there.

What can you add to our virtual train?!

Following your logic .....

I have nine bogie carriages - 9 x 550 = 4950mm
and seven four wheelers - 7 x 200 = 1400mm
Total 6350mm or (/16) = 397ft

Running total = 434 + 397 = 831ft

Rik

Are we including that little brown GVT (I think) carriage that appears in your stone trains? Every little counts!

Most weird - why and how?
But as an electrical engineer, I would have to wonder what special power arrangements were put in place.

Andrew wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:33 pm Are we including that little brown GVT (I think) carriage that appears in your stone trains? Every little counts!

No, forgot that, so that's another 200mm or 12.5 ft
Making the running total 843.5 ft

Rik

gregh wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 8:45 pm Most weird - why and how?
But as an electrical engineer, I would have to wonder what special power arrangements were put in place.

I did find an article about the logistics, but can't now track it down. There were 25 four-car sets which they could only run downhill and in so doing generated 4000kwh of power. I've tracked down this other article which gives some of the stats

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... ger-train/

It includes another quite impressive photo
Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 7:41 am I did find an article about the logistics, but can't now track it down. There were 25 four-car sets which they could only run downhill and in so doing generated 4000kwh of power. I've tracked down this other article which gives some of the stats
Rik

Thanks Rik. My first thought was it 'must be going downhill', but not knowing the Swiss elec network, didn't want to suggest that.

ge_rik wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:02 pm Following your logic .....

I have nine bogie carriages - 9 x 550 = 4950mm
and seven four wheelers - 7 x 200 = 1400mm
Total 6350mm or (/16) = 397ft

Running total = 434 + 397 = 831ft

Rik

To add to the train I have counted, and measured, my bogie and four wheel passenger carrying vehicles and below are my findings....

Sixteen bogie vehicles and twenty two four wheel vehicles, giving a total of 10320mm.
My schoolboy maths has resulted in a running total of 34ft. (actual) or 544 scale ft .@ 16mm/ft.
I may be wrong, but that is less than Rik's figure, even with 22 more items of stock?

Peter Butler wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 12:07 am

ge_rik wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:02 pm Following your logic .....

I have nine bogie carriages - 9 x 550 = 4950mm
and seven four wheelers - 7 x 200 = 1400mm
Total 6350mm or (/16) = 397ft

Running total = 434 + 397 = 831ft

Rik

To add to the train I have counted, and measured, my bogie and four wheel passenger carrying vehicles and below are my findings....

Sixteen bogie vehicles and twenty two four wheel vehicles, giving a total of 10320mm.
My schoolboy maths has resulted in a running total of 34ft. (actual) or 544 scale ft .@ 16mm/ft.
I may be wrong, but that is less than Rik's figure, even with 22 more items of stock?

Hi Peter
I think you must have pressed a couple of wrong keys on the calculator

16 x 500 = 8800mm
22 x 200 = 4400mm
Total = 13200mm

At 16mm/ft = 825ft

Or following your thinking
13200mm = approx 43.3 ft which at 1/19 scale gives 822.7ft

The discrepancy is probably because of rounding errors. 16mm / ft isn't exactly 1/19 scale

So, using the more accurate 825ft (16mm / ft) figure, it makes the running total for the length of our passenger train

831 + 825 = 1651ft

Rik

Thanks Rik, I did mention my 'schoolboy maths' didn't I? Just another subject I'm not very good at!

Ah, the Butler Collection has doubled the length of our train, excellent - we've reached about a quarter of the length of the 2km record holder!

It's got a lot more colourful too, with Peter's wonderful assortment of liveries adding some variety to the predominantly red and green carriages already in the train...

Any more additions?! Can we make a kilometre??!

PS just checked, and apparently it would take the average person 5 or 6 minutes to walk the length of our current train...

With the recent disposal of two thirds of my coaching stock, I'm proud to add a whopping 16" of coach and short-wheelbase guard's van.

On a more serious note, both these trains are boggling my 2am-tired mind.

gregh wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 8:07 am

ge_rik wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 7:41 am I did find an article about the logistics, but can't now track it down. There were 25 four-car sets which they could only run downhill and in so doing generated 4000kwh of power. I've tracked down this other article which gives some of the stats
Rik

Thanks Rik. My first thought was it 'must be going downhill', but not knowing the Swiss elec network, didn't want to suggest that.

Me also, "how can they have all of that power drawn in the same section"

I know parts of London Underground are restricted to how many units can be in the same section and Tyne & Wear Metro had an issue at the end of Great North Run a few years ago with something like 6 trains sitting in the South Shields section when the max is supposed to be 4.

I can add a meagre 2450mm ( /16 = 153 feet) to that total of 1651 feet, giving us a total so far of 1804 feet.
Who's next?

Lonsdaler wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 11:07 pm I can add a meagre 2450mm ( /16 = 153 feet) to that total of 1651 feet, giving us a total so far of 1804 feet.
Who's next?

That's 1829 with Aaron's contribution!

Roll up, roll up!

Andrew wrote: ↑Wed Nov 16, 2022 8:16 am

Lonsdaler wrote: ↑Tue Nov 15, 2022 11:07 pm I can add a meagre 2450mm ( /16 = 153 feet) to that total of 1651 feet, giving us a total so far of 1804 feet.
Who's next?

That's 1829 with Aaron's contribution!

Roll up, roll up!

Ah, I missed Aaron's post (apologies Aaron).