# Pulling Power part 2



## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Over in the Beginners Forum, Festus started a thread inquiring about the pulling power of his various locomotives. Using the fish scale method I mentioned in his thread, I measured the pulling power of 17 of my engines this morning. In the case of the steam engines, the weight is for the engine only, the tender was not included.

I found that for engines that didn't free wheel, the force needed to pull the engine along the track was about the same as adding voltage until I got wheel slip. 


Chuck 


PS: It looks as if I just got promoted to foreman with this post. 




Number of 

Pulling Power 
Number of Wheels With Weight Pulling Power % of Engine ENGINE Powered Axles Traction tires (lbs) (lbs) Weight LGB 




AT&SF Diesel 6 1 9.4 2.5 27 Diesel F7a 4 1 8.75 3 34 Mogul (2-6-0) 3 1 7 1.5 21 Mallet (2-6-6-2) 6 2 9.8 3 31 Forney (0-4-4) 2 1 7.6 2.75 36 AristoCraft 




Mikado (2-8-2) 4 0 11 4.5 41 Mallet (2-8-8-2) 8 0 14 5 36 Bachmann 




Climax 4 0 7.3 2.25 31 Consolidation (2-8-0) 4 0 10.1 3.25 32 Mikado (2-8-2) 4 0 13 3.75 29 Accucraft 




K28 Mikado (2-8-2) 4 0 12 3.5 29 K27 Mikado (2-8-2) 4 0 17.5 4.75 27 USAt 




Diesel SD40 6 4 10.4 3.5 34 Diesel SD70 6 0 11 4.5 41 Diesel F3a 4 4 7.5 3.25 43 Diesel F3b 4 4 6.9 3.75 54 F3a+F3b 8 8 14.4 6.75 47


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Great Information.

A German Large Scale dealer published pulling power information on his website years ago, mostly for LGB engines.

Seems the information has now disappeared off the website but I kept a copy in pdf attached below.

Although the text is in German, I think it's pretty obvious what the columns mean.
The first weight column is the listed weight by the manufacturer, the second the actual weight
Weight and pulling power is in kilograms and grams - easy to convert
Tests were done with a 5 amp powerpack (a 2 amp power pack is not adequate) with clean rails and wheels.


LGB also published pulling power of all their engines in some of the older catalogues.
They took a more practical approach - rather than publish a number in grams or ounces or pounds, they indicated the number of "axles" each engine could pull in graphical form. 


Knut

http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/krs/Pulling Power_CL.pdf


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Knut:

Danke for the added information.

I think that rating pulling power by number of axles may have worked at one time, but with all the newer versions of wheels, journals, electrical pickup, and ball bearings I doubt that data would have even worked during the later years LGB was in operation.

If anyone wants to add any information for other locomotives, send the data in the format I used in my table and I'll keep adding to the table.

Chuck


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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By chuck n on 09 Jul 2011 02:12 PM 
I think that rating pulling power by number of axles may have worked at one time, but with all the newer versions of wheels, journals, electrical pickup, and ball bearings I doubt that data would have even worked during the later years LGB was in operation.

You're absolutely right Chuck.
These were the "good old days" when all cars came with plastic wheels and the car lighting was handled with a thin cable connected to the power socket of the LGB engine and then strung from car to car.

I was interested to see how much force it would take to pull one of the large, 4-axle LGB RhB passenger cars with electric pick-up.

For the older versions prior to the year 2000 which had carbon brushes for power pick-up, the force required was 92 grams (or 3.2 oz); those cars weighed 1890 grams (or just over 4 pounds)

For the newer versions manufactured after 2000 with ball-bearing pick-ups for power, the force required was only 15 grams (or about 1/2 oz) even though the cars themselves were slightly heavier at 2035 grams (or almost 4.5 pounds).

Would be interesting to get a comparison using the same car but with different types of wheels - original plastic, different manufacturers metal wheels (which probably won't vary that much), ball-bearing metal wheels, different jpurnals, with and without power pick-up etc. 




Knut


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

The LGB 3 axle diesels without side rods have no power applied to the center axle, which I assumed the first diesel listed must be.


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## chuck n (Jan 2, 2008)

Correct. I forgot about that.


Chuck


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