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Back in the day,say 40+ years ago,I used to be a little fearless and crank the ole ZW up a little  😉

My childhood layout had a straight stretch on the back side of about 15ft and I could really get some speed built up.

But sad and embarrassed to say now,a few steamers met their demise in deadmans curve ! 

My late father would hear the thump from downstairs open the door and ask "what fell this time ? ".

Marx always seemed to get more speed than the Lionels did.

I've learned today that full speed isn't prototypical, but a little nudge on the throttle is fun to a regulated ,being my hand,degree.

 

When you say top speed, are you speaking of Speed Step (#125) on a 990 Legacy Remote or more speed to crash and destroy your engine?

Speed Step 125 is a reasonable limit for running my large Vision Line Big Boy engines.  These are not race cars.  If my Big Boy #4014 crashes, I keep another #4014 sealed in the box under the train table with my 4004, 4012, 4017 and 4018.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

John Rowlen posted:

When you say top speed, are you speaking of Speed Step (#125) on a 990 Legacy Remote or more speed to crash and destroy your engine?

Speed Step 125 is a reasonable limit for running my large Vision Line Big Boy engines.  These are not race cars.  If my Big Boy #4014 crashes, I keep another #4014 sealed in the box under the train table with my 4004, 4012, 4017 and 4018.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

I've only got the one VLBB and when I said top speed, I meant speed step 200 (Which I think actually says 199 on the remote as 0 counts towards the 200 speed steps of Legacy.).  She does just fine.

As for the PRR T-1, I have the PS-1 version and had it full throttle (18V) several times.  And she sure runs smooth.  When ever she gets on the rail she just screams to be let loose.

When I was a child? I liked to run them fast. Now I run conventional sans cruise control on O-27 track, and none of my locomotives cost more than $150, including shipping, though most I have upgraded with ERR RailSounds. Let's say the most I have invested into a single engine is about $280, still very modest. While I can't run my trains as slow as those of you with cruise control, I still generally try to run them as slow as possible. So I think that some of it is related to youth

Every once and awhile, the kid in me sneaks out and I open up the throttle. My series-wired Williams geeps, heavy as they are, stay planted. The lighter K-Line MP15, also series-wired, becomes hairy as it approaches the full-throttle, and would almost certainly leave the track if pushed that far. The Lionel docksider, heavy for it's size can run quite quick, but I have managed to dump it on my O-27 curves. My layout has plexiglass fences on the sides that aren't up against the wall, so the risk of damage in a derailment. But again, usually my trains don't leave the slow to medium spectrum.

Interestingly, when I go to the local club's semi-annual open house, it bothers me not when children run the trains on the hands-on layout at high speeds. However, there is one adult who likes to run his scale passenger train on the big layout at above-scale speeds. Even though it is his prerogative, I find it mildly irritating.

 

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