I don’t live by the calculations, but it’s nice to see what the scale speed is in actuality and compare it to how it looks.
I learned this when I tried out my 200 smph USAT diesels! By keeping things to scale speeds, it really looked better, and as mentioned in a Model Railroader article long time ago, it makes your layout “larger”.
Greg
ok. so I’ve slowed the speed way down. It covers 26 inches in 4.76 seconds now. In the prior video it covered the same distance in about 2 seconds.
and, I assume my Climax is to fast right?
Very realistic speed! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
Again, just measure the time over distance and you can see the scale speed.
Timmy, how long are the roadbed “sections” on the straights? are they 1 foot?
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Again, just measure the time over distance and you can see the scale speed.
Timmy, how long are the roadbed “sections” on the straights? are they 1 foot?
Greg
No, they are about 16 inches each
Thanks Tim, that helps, just curious, it’s interesting to see what the actual scale speed is.
So in your last video, on the straightaway, the loco covered about 16 inches in 3 seconds.
5.33 inches/second… convert to scale (* 20.3)… 108.2666 prototype inches per second, 6.15 scale miles per hour.
Would say that is pretty much perfect.
Greg
As mentioned, the Shay covered 26 inches (can see with the tape measure) in 4.76 seconds.
Timmy
In my opinion, your Shay speed is now much better running with a load, running light you can get a little faster.
Again in my opinion,
The Climax is too fast by twice. It is easy to run the Climax faster than it should because there is just something in the fast short stroke movement of those inclined cylinders and rods driving those crank wheels that just says speed. In fact your choice of theme music demonstrates that exactly(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Well, the climax is 6.15 smph, and the shay at 26 inches in 4.75 seconds is 5.47 inches/second, scaled to 20.3 it is 111 inches/second or 6.3 smph.
so both just a touch over 6 miles per hour, seems right… as far as actual scale speed goes (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Thanks Tim, that helps, just curious, it’s interesting to see what the actual scale speed is.
So in your last video, on the straightaway, the loco covered about 16 inches in 3 seconds.
5.33 inches/second… convert to scale (* 20.3)… 108.2666 prototype inches per second, 6.15 scale miles per hour.
Would say that is pretty much perfect.
Greg
I take it back. The straight pieces are 24 inches.
It was hard to count the joiners on the videos and time to them, because I think you have LGB track that have “extra” joiners on the middle of the rail sections, so that is why I asked about the roadbed, because I could see the joints in the roadbed easily.
In any case, take the distance in inches, and divide by the time.
multiply that by 20.3 to convert to scale
then you have inches per second.
multiply that by .056818 to convert to scale miles per hour.
Greg
From my reading it seems that the rule of thumb for Shays was 10 loads at 10mph.
In the East they usually operated on poor track often temporarily placed to remove logs in the valley between two hills. When the timber was gone the track was moved to the next valley.
If you want to see a REALLY slow model Shay find a Missouri Locomotive Company Buffalo Shay.
I’ve even seen a video of a Shay splashing through a creek in WVA. The logging company didn’t bother building a bridge.
