Say Goodbye to Faulty Starts, Dirty Track, and All That!

One of my great railroading experiences occurred when I was about 10 years old. I used to meet father at the train station in Harmon, New York, on his return from his job in New York City. Harmon was where the New York Central changed motive power on all long distance trains – electric from there to the City, steam or diesel from there north and west. One day I was standing on the platform (in the US most station platforms are at rail level) when a great Niagara 4-8-4 had hooked up to the overnighter to Chicago. The trains usually had about 16 or more heavyweight baggage, coach, and sleeper cars. The Niagaras were impressive to a 10-year-old: their 78-inch drivers were at least a foot taller than I was and the locomotives themselves were about 15 feet tall.

With a great commotion of steam release and sound blasts from the pistons the great locomotive attempted to start, wheels slipping with the first few thrusts until gradually they caught hold and the heavy train began to move. Soon the train was gliding swiftly past me on its way to Chicago. At that moment I felt the enormity of the forces at work.

Since then my number one goal in model railroading has been to achieve this sense of weight and force - the slow steady start, and gradual increase in speed. It has been an elusive goal, despite the great advances in model train motors and train control devices. I’ve never achieved it on a reliable basis, though I’ve had moderate success with my O-gauge trolleys. One car in particular, a big Cincinnati & Lake Erie box motor with a pair of DC-60 motors can slowly start a train of 10 or more freight cars and sustain a slow, freight-like pace.

Usually, even if motors and control are good, something will cause a train to stall. Dirt is the usual culprit and those with older, not well-sealed basements for running environments, have the most trouble. Trolleys, especially larger ones, may have some advantage here. O-gaugers usually bond their rails as a single return circuit and use the overhead wire as a supply. This provides for 8 wheels (on a normal double-truck car) contacting the rails (return circuit) and a single pole contacting the wire (supply circuit). The trolley pole exerts some upward pressure against the wire, helping to maintain good contact.

The other thing I like to do with model trains is shunt freight cars. This calls for slow, precise operation. Even with a smoothly operating locomotive and good electrical contact, I may have frustration as the car being picked up goes rolling down the track instead of coupling when contact is made.

My virtual trains, however, excel at slow, smooth, reliable operation. The Microsoft Train Simulator (MSTS) has fine momentum characteristics, making coupling a life-like challenge, and some of the diesel switchers have terrific sounds, giving the impression of being at the throttle of a live locomotive. Some MSTS cars are have problematic couplers that refuse to uncouple. The best solution is to identify those cars and not use them.

The Trainz simulator excels at switching operations, though the momentum effects are not quite as good. The reliability, however, is impeccable.

If you like to shunt cars and like slow, Smooth, reliable running, do yourself a favor and give virtual railroading a try. Also, don’t forget Boso View Express (BVE). This freeware simulator is a cab-view driving sim that has outstanding train dynamics. Some of the third-party routes have the most realistic scenery of any simulator I’ve seen.

We cover all aspects of train simulation at Virtual Railroader, which, by the way, is free!

Cheers,
-- Al