Model Railway Forum

In one man band layouts I guess no real value but in multi people operated layouts ( as I do here in Aust), having some permanent speed detection units - not necessarily the type as per the first post but units like this
http://railwaykits.net/MRSDP.htm and having speed restrictions on the layout helps for drivers to keep to the appropriate speed for that loco/train

one layout here in Australia has these limits set
Speed limits: •In all yard/industrial areas is 10mph
•For all freights is 30mph
•For all passengers is 30mph

Speed is a wierd thing when it comes down to models. (I am not saying not to buy one of those gadgets if you want one). The reason why I say what looks right is because actual scale speeds look far too slow when scaled down.
I feel that what is better is to give an overall impression of the right speed to complete the scene.
I can see the point that setting the maximum speeds on the DCC controller for double heading one does require for them all to be similar if one has double heading in mind. That makes perfect sense.
We also have the stall factor when it comes to our models. Some lovely models have so many pickups to loads of wheels and they have nice silky smooth motors that they have no issues.
If you are a member of a club, and everyone chips in it brings the cost right down... Everyone then brings in their DCC locos for programming... Ideal!
Thought along those lines. Didn't Guagemaster do a gadget for fault testing decoders? Another ideal club gadget.

I have just had another thought which would be ideal and having this thought makes me surprized that no one to my knowledge makes one. A rolling road that measures speed. Now it is likely to cost a small fortune, but can see the practicality for DCC maximum speed setting reasons.

Assuming 00, which IIRC [I'm an n gauge modeller, please don't talk about scales....1/148,150,160 ] is 1/87. It's worth knowing that 60mph is 88ft/sec. So your express should cover approx 1ft/sec and a loose coupled goods anything from 4" to 8"/sec. To my eye, these look a bit slow, and while I'm not one to like pannier tanks racing around 12" curves at a scale 200mph, I like an express to look like it 'means it'.

OO is 1/76.2 scale or 4mm to the foot but runs on 1/87 gauge track.

HO is 1/87.

Rog (RJ) wrote: ↑Sat Jun 27, 2020 12:56 pm OO is 1/76.2 scale or 4mm to the foot but runs on 1/87 gauge track.

HO is 1/87.

I stand corrected.

However it's a relatively simple piece of maths to take your 88ft/sec and divide by your scale to get feet per second in your scale.

Scale doesn’t matter if you measure your speed in coaches per second over distance as the ‘train’ does the calcs for you.

If you have x number of coaches passing a point in so many seconds and if you know how long a coach is hence the distance covered in time.

A full size train will pass the same number of coaches in front of your eyes as an 00 gauge or N Scale train at the same ‘real’ MPH.