hornby vs bachmann power

[tommyrob123]

hi, i have a gaugemaster track cleaning wagon for the hard to reach track but none of my hornby locos seem to have the power to pull it. have tried a class 66, a small bo-bo and my mallard. advised a class 47 or 37 would do it but which is best hornby or bachmann

[RFS]

Do what Network Rail do, and top-and-tail it with a pair of diesels. On my layout I use a pair of 73s for the purpose.

[Mountain Goat]

As for pulling power, I remember trying to do a stall test to find out the max current draw of my locos when I was converting them to DCC (My 00 gauge locos. Never did get to convert all of them!)
I was getting along fine until I came to the Bachmann class 46 and class 45 (Was a class 46 Bachmann chassis on a Mainline class 45 body). Do you know I came close to putting my full weight on the things and I couldn't get them to stall. I did not want to break the axles but the wheels just kept turning on the rails! I have to make an educated guess and use decoders that allowed a 1.5 amp max current draw as I never did find out what those motors stalling current was.

So if one wants a loco that pulls, those things pull.

Top and tailing with two similar equally matched loco is a good idea, or double heading... Top and tailing will be better if one has to reverse, but if the front loco stalls (Unlikely with todays all wheel pick up diesels), the other loco could push the track cleaning wagon off the rails while ordinary double heading is not likely to do this... BUT, though I don't have one, those track cleaning wagons do need to be heavy so I wouldn't expect this to happen if one tops and tails, so yes. That is the best plan especially if using DCC. (I believe nearly all DCC controllers allow for double heading? Only a few of the most basic ones do not. I think mine allows for consists of over 30 locos if I remember? Far more then I would want to move at the same time!)

If one is using DC (Or DCC), use a pair of equally matched locos. (In other words, two locos which have a similar top speed and seem to run at similar speeds if they are on the same track). Equally matched locos do not have to be the same type of loco. It is more that they run at similar speeds so they will work together as they pull and are not fighting against each other.

Regarding pulling power between Hornby and Bachmann, it depends on the locos, though I have found with my locos that Bachmann locos do seem to have the edge on pulling power, though I am out of date a bit as I have not bought anything other then little Hornby 0-4-0's for my narrow gauge in recent years.

[Mike Parkes]

Gaugemaster have an article covering the issue of (some) suitable locos
https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/magen ... wagon.html

[PBoland]

Gaugemaster have an article covering the issue of (some) suitable locos
https://www.gaugemasterretail.com/magen ... wagon.html

Some good simple ideas here. I have the same unit and yes some pull it and some do not.

On that note (Power), I have a GaugeMaster GMC-Q, nice tidy unit but a question. Hornby, Bachmann, very old Lima/Hornby, Kato all run perfectly from slow to max speed. Dapol and Heljan just crawl slow to slow max, the Dapol is a maintenance DMU and the Heljan pulls an oil train so slow is appropriate, both are brand new units. However any ideas?

[Walkingthedog]

Have you run in the locos. Some locos are geared to run at realistic speeds.

[PBoland]

Have you run in the locos. Some locos are geared to run at realistic speeds.

Yep, run in and yes, speed is realistic but tell that to the grandchildren Just got a Kato Amtrak from the USA and it flies along straight out of the box. Cheers for the reply.

[Walkingthedog]

PBoland get them a Scalextrix