Many of you know my railroad features a curving grade of over 4% and a wye for turning at the end. Both of those features normally limit a train to 4 or 5 cars.
Utilizing RailPro’s advanced consisting system, I can now take a long and heavy train up the hill with help, then easily break it in pieces to go around the wye, then re-assemble for the trip home. This post will document the steps and moves needed to accomplish this.
To begin the process, the dispatcher calls M-11 to assemble the train. M-11 begins by pulling a string of cars from McGillicuddy’s…
Meanwhile, dispatch calls M-10 to stage with a box and caboose on the run-around in South Willow Hill as M-11 waits with the train on the main…
After a bit of shifting, M-11 takes position ahead of M-10 to become pusher units. They are temporarily consisted together by pushing the Link button on the controller and selecting locos to consist together. I will detail those steps a little down the page…
M-11/M-10 then take their position at the end of the train…,
The day’s steam power has done some shifting of their own at the other end of the indoor railroad and now take position as the lead locomotives for the train…
Temporary consists are broken with the UnLink button so we can now tie all 4 locomotives together. I’m using the HC Simulator on my PC to build the consist so you can easily see the pointer to the buttons I’ll push.
First, from any locomotive screen I press the Link button…
This brings up a screen of locomotive pictures where I select the lead, or locomotive #1 from the list. In this case, #8…
This is repeated for each locomotive in order from lead to tail…
Now that all 4 locomotives are selected, I press the Done button…
The controller returns to the Control Locomotive screen of the lead loco where I push the button that now says MU-4 to check that all locomotives are running in the proper direction…
The resulting screen shows each locomotive and which direction it is running. Any locos not running the correct direction can be easily changed from this screen by pressing the arrow…
I looked at the Next Page to confirm Loco #4 before pressing Done.
Ready to roll, I raise the throttle on #8 and the three following locomotives also throttle up, and in a matter of a few feet they have negotiated load matching and the entire train marches smoothly up the grade…
With all that power, getting 10 cars up and around Coal Dump curve is effortless. A few minutes later the lead locomotive arrives at Pine Summit and brings the train to a stop…
At this point I press the Unlink button to break the 4 loco consist, then push Link again to link #8 and #345 to pull the first half of the train through the wye…
#8/345 shove the front half of the train around the wye while M-10/M-11 hold on the main…
I’m excited that by the next time I take pictures here, that ugly peeling brown paint on the house will be gone replaced by a nice fresh coat of grey 
#8/345 pull the train through the crossing and hold just short of the main while M-11 prepares to move the second half of the train…
Shoving into Deep Cut…
And then pulling to the North Tail…
M-11 then carefully shoves through the crossing at WALK to couple with the front of the train as M-10, on the main, prepares to move…
M-10 has brought it’s train into Deep Cut and is now shoving into the wye…
M-10 holds just short of Walk Crossing awaiting the train to clear the North tail…
I now use the Link button to build a temporary consist of #8/345/M-11 to move the train clear of the crossing where M-10 and train take up position at the rear…
Finally, I Unlink the temporary consist and re-build the consist with Link exactly the way it was initially done. The entire train is now ready for the trip down-grade for home…
I tried to take a few videos, but they didn’t turn out usable, but I’ll say this to close: MU performance on the level, or up grade is excellent. Starting an MU train down grade is a little shaky as the pull of the grade makes it harder for the speed match to happen causing the train to surge for the first 5-8 feet. Eventually the system figures it out and the couplers go taught, even down grade!
