When I was a kid, many moons ago (LOL) I had and still have my 8030 Illinios Central GP9. I also had a mixture of MPC and postwar Lionel cars, but many more postwar then MPC, just because I bought or my mom I should say, bought all of my cars from Madison Hardware and MPC was still in it's youth. I would runs long trains ( well long for a 10 year old) of 13-15 cars with the diesel. It never had a problem pulling those trains, but I did run it long nose first, just because I liked the look of it that way better then short nose first. If it had a problem I would have known, I was 10 and all 10 year olds and know what fast was, plus I knew my trains. Every kid at that age knows what fast is. My set up was a carpet layout that went around the perimeter of my room, under my bed, probably 10x10 ft. (New York Tenement- when they built real sized rooms). Well as kids go, and I was no exception, I had a set of barbell weights that were given to me. So one day I decided to experiment. First went 2 1/2 lb weight on a flat car- no difference, then another for 5lbs, still no difference, then 5lbs on another flat car behind it for a total of 10, little difference, then 1 10lb weight on a third flat car for a total 20lbs, well it pulled it, but struggled, but it pulled it around the layout. After that it didn't pull like it used too, I wonder why??? So I told mom the engine wasn't pulling like it used too, never told her why, ( We weren't as stupid as today kids) and away we took it to Madison Hardware. Carl brought it in the back to the repair person, Joe, he came out and gave me a scowl, he knew EXACTLY what had happened, you don't burn out the motor on these engine by pulling cars around the track. He never said anything to my mom and repaired it. Full price $48, to teach me a lesson, which it did. That did hurt my mom's pocketbook, but never did I do something like that again. But back to the story, I've never had a problem with the pulling power of the MPC GP units, as far as I'm concerned they can pull they're weight in gold. Well maybe not gold, but in barbell weights-LOL!!!
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