Speaking of curves, there was a ten mile stretch of track between two towns that followed a river. As we rode along downstream, after leaving one town all you needed to do was get the train over a slight grade and then you could shut the throttle off and pretty much coast at track speed around the river to the next town. With a normal mile long train or so, you didn't notice any speed differential going around the river. However, one day I had a short train of about twenty five cars. After getting over the hump, I just let the train drift along. On this day it was very noticeable that every time the train went through a curve you could feel it slow down just a bit due to the drag from the curvature. Then as the track straightened out, the speed would pick back up just a bit. The train did that for about nine miles and that was the only time that I ever noticed the drag from curves.
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