Long Lash-Up Engines

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November 9, 2017

Steven has ambitious plans for his O gauge set-up and asks:

“I want to put seven diesels mth or lionel engine in a row to pull 250 freight cars. How big would the transformers I would need to be to pull 250 freight cars?”

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2 Responses to Long Lash-Up Engines

Graeme says:

November 9, 2017 at 2:16 am

Hi Steven I don’t know wether this helps but I run 14 locos lashed up in 2&3 pulling 165 wagons between them on the flat and up 2% grades on curves and they have loads of power to spare. I use an NCE power cab with a 5 amp booster on about 300 feet of track. Hope this helps Graeme.

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Frank B says:

November 22, 2017 at 9:07 pm

Add up the stall currents of all the locos, and that is the maximum current the transformer needs to supply.
So if you have ten locos each taking 0.5 Amps, you need (at least) a 5 Amp transformer.
(But also add in the current taken by accessories run from the same transformer.)

To find the stall current of a loco, take the maximum voltage that would be applied, measure the resistance of the electric motor with a multimeter, and divide the voltage by the resistance to get the stall current.
Current in Amps = Voltage / Resistance

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