283 Car Union Pacific Coal Train at the Colorado Model Railroad Museum

CMRM Extreme Trains November 2018
Watch a 283 car Union Pacific coal train climb the 2.5 percent grade to the Quartz Mountain summit. Powered by 11 locomotives -- two on the head end, with five more sets distributed through the train. The train is three scale miles long (200 actual feet) and weighs 30,000 prototype tons. Engineers Luke Brendsel and Scott Warren keep their train together as it crests the summit and descends to Lakeview. The total run length is over 20 scale miles (1350 actual feet).
To get a better idea of the route followed you can watch an animated track plan of the layout showing an eastbound run over the Quartz Mountain summit at:
• The Big Cab Ride (East...
Find out more about the Colorado Model Railroad Museum at:
www.cmrm.org/

[@karenhumes1513]

You need one hell of a layout for a 283 car train & this sure fills the bill! Simply AMAZING!!! Greg

[@doug383]

perfect track,good running locos, and fine tuning of all those coal cars great work guys !!!!!

[@CintiRailFan]

This is really impressive! How could anyone possibly give it a thumbs down?!

[@billr991]

Thank you CintiRailFan. I appreciate the sentiment. But no matter what sort of video you post, if there are a lot of views, there will always be someone who doesn't like it. At the moment there are 271 thumbs up vs 10 down. If the numbers were reversed, I might start to wonder what we did wrong. As it is, it's OK.

[@jalbhagwagar3353]

simply jealous of this stunning feat.

[@Drachenhannes]

@@billr991 The people who gave thumbs down probably had to wait for a train like that to pass on a railroad crossing.

[@jalbhagwagar3353]

You guys are too good. Your operations are so smooth. Just like the real deal. And the video quality is awesome. Top class all the way 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼 Thank you for the treat🙏🏼

[@williamschlenger1518]

Great looking layout& beautiful scenery 😊

[@MrOmega52]

This railroad is an absolute masterpiece of model railroading art. Great video graph as well.

[@tommachut7167]

Totally Amazing ! So many things must be perfect to do something like this , And they were. Great job.

[@abysmaldryer]

I would hate to be in one of those cars at the crossing! BTW very nice layout!

[@Bruno.Trains]

Wow, that was beautiful to watch.awesome scenery.

[@helviopd]

Impressive!, not only the train with 283 cars plus 11 locomotives (to coordinate the speed), you had a lot of work and design and built this wonderful layout. Congratulations!!!! ...

[@billr991]

Thanks Helvio. The layout was designed and built by Dave Trussell and a large group of dedicated volunteers. Learn more about the origin and history of the Colorado Model Railroad Museum at: www.cmrm.org/history/ and www.cmrm.org/about/

[@helviopd]

@@billr991 Tank you for the information. I'll see it. Regards.

[@TouchoftheBrushModelWeathering]

That is incredible Bill! You just proved its doable.

[@dennisjackson6693]

that was absolutely great

[@wb0iqk]

What about the poor people trying to cross the track at Dairy? They must have been fuming.

[@williamschlenger1518]

The scenery is spectacular.

[@mikel5295]

Super sweet video !!!

[@nscalefun]

AWESOME, EXCELLENT and PERFECT!!!!! Love those long trains!!! Thank you for sharing and keep up the good work.

[@miniaturefarmer464]

Incredible! Something CSX would have tried in real life under Hunter Harrison. LOL!

[@thomasboddeker9093]

Dazu habe ich wirklich keine Fragen! Dem Erfinder der digitalen Technik sei Dank!

[@PlanesTrainsEverything]

Amazing stuff!

[@kevinyoung9557]

Beautiful .Would love to see a video about the history of the museum and how the layout came about. Bucket list need to visit Greely Co, Breathtaking layout

[@billr991]

This could be exactly what you are looking for: www.cmrm.org/product/building-operation-super-model-rr-video/

[@kevinyoung9557]

@@billr991 ty Bill

[@kenmunozatmmrrailroad6853]

I'll always be a 3-rail O-gauge kinda guy but damnit if you don't get stunning realism from this stuff! Great layout guys!

[@billr991]

Thanks Ken. Three-rail O-gauge has it's own special appeal.

[@mrlloydsummers1977]

Great Layout

[@longrider50]

That was amazing. Such a smooth ride. Wow!!!

[@themanfromcabowabo1559]

Fitting it’s UP considering they also gave us 4014 and the DD40X.

[@the4000class]

Wow an amazing feat ! Congratulations well done!!

[@trainmansorrell]

Wicked crazy cool. thanks for sharing that. as a UP fan loved it!!!! 😁😁😁😁

[@cprtrain]

Wow! Thanks for posting.

[@tomgroenbeck7620]

Nice layout and nice run. My coal train is only 108 BNSF cars and 8 engines, so I guess I need to get back on eBay and buy more ;-) Some layouts are more reliable than others with running long trains. You loose power (dirty track) and the cars start tipping over. Need to come visit this layout, quite a few miles from CA.

[@acmrctrains7157]

go to your local hobby shop and give the owner a heart attack ordering another 50 to 100

[@randysrockandrollrailroad8207]

Wow! Very Cool!

[@railroad9000]

Fantastic!

[@fastcsx1412]

Wow so so so so cool

[@Midway_CV-41]

Amazing! Im speechless

[@tct855]

Museum Members, Crap, crap, crap! Poor scenery that's unrealistic, poor backdrop paintings, stupid weathering on locomotives, too many cars on the train, poor video quality fake looking mountains. None! of the aforementioned applies to this totally awesome railroad museum. What a fantastic group of individuals bringing an awesome huge unit train into existence. I just love everything about this great video and everyone's efforts to model just a cool model railroad. Hat's off to all who built and all who maintain & operate this modeling wonder. I'm on board with you guys and hope to see this someday in person. Thank you all for your hard work and efforts. Keep doing what you're doing! Thanks for sharing! Have a good day! Thanx Thom...

[@JohnTurner-wp7lg]

Do you just have to speak if you don't like it then don't do it if you don't like the video then watch something else

[@billr991]

@@JohnTurner-wp7lg I don't think tct855 meant his comment to be negative. Try reading it again.

[@garyfranson1353]

Regardless of whether they run a 200+ car train or not, visit this lahyout in Greeley, Colorado. It is amazing in size, scope and detail. I have been there in person 4 or 5 times, and think it looks even better in person than on this video or perhaps any video. BTW, I am impressed with how they kept so many DPUs in the train running and pulling at the same speed as the lead locomotives to keep the train from pulling apart or buckling somewhere in the middle. No way to pull a train this long in HO scale with all the units up front as the weight of the trains behind the engines would pull couplers apart.

[@Ithasaname]

@@JohnTurner-wp7lg Make sure to read the whole comment, not just tct855's eye catching opening sentence. ;-) Trust me I, I thought the same at first. ha

[@j.reynolds3089]

Very nice.

[@TheSupradude26]

Awesome! There had to be another 17 coal cars available to make it a nice even 300 haha. And I thought running 75 cars on my 6' x 15' N scale layout was pushing the limit... However I just run 5 or 6 locomotives up front with no helpers.. impressive..

[@jimsteinborn]

That would be a nice round number, wouldn't it? Train length limited by siding capacity. It's possible that another 17 cars would make it impossible for trains to pass each other.

[@joesaurina1402]

Mr. Rogers, let us say $20 per car, that's over $5600 in rolling stock alone, plus locomotives, freakin awesome. And really smooth operation, great job. If you look at my facebook page there are pictures of my layout, the one you inspired. Thank you for all you do, cheers!

[@sonysnapper]

Actually, according to to owner of the first 100 cars it was $40/car

[@JohnTurner-wp7lg]

That something I would try lol long trains is the way to go

[@ArantiusVulpes]

So much potential for gremlins

[@joestrainworldvideos3977]

Fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. Wow I love this trains. I subscribed. What else.

[@billr991]

Thank you Joes's train world videos. To see whole lot more click on these playlists: kzbin.info/aero/PLCiFPrus_jMratsoVm8rBxr3JEIYRdQO- kzbin.info/aero/PLCiFPrus_jMrL3c9K5oPPXSAZCixTVRdL

[@dieselbeema4255]

One of the oustanding features for me - realistic train speeds. Some serious electrics and electronics here to make it smooth running!

[@Kevin-ev7hw]

See what you can do with DCC system. :)

[@michaelmraz8243]

at a flea market rate of $20/car thats over $5500 not including engines. sigh

[@tylerbonser7686]

And I'm guess they bought them new so 50 plus per car. 200 plus per engine.

[@acmrctrains7157]

older one have to many gremlins mine to but slowly getting 30 good ones

[@jeff9104]

Great stuff !

[@tammo100]

Incredible, that's about 45 meter length

[@Midway_CV-41]

Darn

[@jappedut9009]

Awesome

[@AraRoodbuik]

Very exciting and impressive. Just a pity that the camera has not stood still for 5 minutes. When I spot trains, I also like to count the wagons. I couldn't really do this now.

[@MarkInLA]

3:58 I feel bad for those people who probably don't care about trains and have to sit idling that long to cross the track !

[@BossSpringsteen69]

Speaking of the prototype. This was probably in 2018 but i spliced two empty coal hopper trains together and cut the DPU unit off of the rear. The car count was about 260 cars. We were told to do this move. Everybody in the yard lower than a yardmaster was just astonished by what management was ordering us to do. If i remember correctly the train made it to it's destination ok.

[@HobbyLifeSMF]

The American railway model museum is big and realistic. I would like to go once.

[@Midway_CV-41]

Same

[@user-mp2tl8zv2t]

Hi. Heppy new year.

[@billr991]

And Happy New Year to you too!

[@acmrctrains7157]

at our club it would be too much going over 50 but have you thought of a tips video on how to run long trains things to make it successful

[@tonywaldon7801]

Good SHOW that's why they call it "the mighty union pacific"

[@MartyLJ57]

Awesome ! Are the front and tail end engines ever in sight or parallel to each other?

[@billr991]

Thanks Marty Jeruzal. I can think of a couple of places where that might have happened. They may have been within sight of each other at around 14:11 and were probably parallel at around 20:07 . You can get a better idea of where the train was by looking at the animated track plan shown at kzbin.info/www/bejne/b5S4fX9thsh4qLM . When looking at the animation keep in mind that the train in the animation is only a fraction of the length of the 283 car coal train. At 1 minute11 seconds in the animation the head end may have been visible from the tail end which was still in the "Loops". At 1 minute 23 seconds in the animation the front and tail engines were parallel and moving in opposite directions.

[@WVS-KFD]

Fantastic work. Without DPUs in the train, I wonder what the "string-line limit" is on this main? When I had my home layout, I pulled 90 car manifests along 42in radius curves with my scratch-built gas turbine (couldn't test anything longer--no more cars!).

[@lbrendse]

The "String Line Limit is about 65-70 cars with Coal & Grain. Now its a lot different with Autoracks or Double stacks. but that's assuming that all the cars run good and very little drag.

[@acmrctrains7157]

its starts to get heavy just try to pull the cars without the loco to feel all that weight kadees are amazing

[@MBTAMoreRailfan]

What type of locos? They must be REALLY REALLY strong.

[@billr991]

Sorry, I don't have an accurate list. Maybe someone who is in to modern diesels could jump in here.

[@Midway_CV-41]

Both lead units were most likely kato ac4400s 0:48 the 2 patched sp dash 9s were also probably kato, 1:23 sd70ace at the end is athearn genesis 1:07 intermountain up es44 and kato dsah 9 2:21 ac4400cw w/ diff. sd70ace? 5:33 patched sp ac4400 + sd70ace Note i am human and prone to faults so i could be possibly wrong

[@cat650paver]

Wondering. Do the cars all have different numbers, or are there duplicates?

[@jimsteinborn]

It is possible there are duplications, but for the most part they are uniquely numbered.

[@acmrctrains7157]

@@jimsteinborn thats a nice touch if watching up close not seeing duplicates

[@jappedut9009]

Wowsers 😯😮😲

[@lesashiminski690]

Amazing . How to you keep train from stringing on curves? I tried on layout and cars tiped on curve

[@billr991]

The team of volunteers that put this together has spent a lot time speed matching the locomotives, and perfecting distributed power operation on the OC&E.

[@stationx4288]

Exactly what I was gonna say 😄

[@mclifer]

Enough coal to last a day at the power plant.

[@JoeG-firehousewhiskey]

wow, now thats impressive

[@spikespa5208]

Were any of the locomotives damaged doing this?

[@billr991]

No

[@oaktadopbok665]

Are there any real railroads with grades that steep? Any idea how much that train weighs? Awesome layout!

[@billr991]

Thanks OÄKTA DOPBOK. Yes there are railroads with 2.5 percent grades, although that is considered to be unusually steep. Grades under 2 percent are much more common. The CMRM volunteers who put the train together told me that the 283 car train weighs around 28,000 prototype tons.

[@oaktadopbok665]

@@@billr991 Thanks for that info. I don't mean to be a wise guy, but I also wonder what the model train you guys were running weighed. There's got to be a braniac somewhere that wants to compare the power consumption of your electronics to the equivalent diesel traction (ratio-wise, I mean). That info could become part of the lore that will inevitably accumulate from the running of this epic coal train.

[@billr991]

@@oaktadopbok665 You're not being a wise guy at all. The scaling of length, weight, and power between the model world and the prototype world is an interesting topic. Try Googling "what are scaling laws" and then click on the link referencing Springer. Also the article at www.av8n.com/physics/scaling.htm looks interesting. While both articles go farther than most of us are willing or even able to go, the introductions are informative. As to how much the model train weighed, I don't know exactly. But let's make a wild guess by speculating that the cars weigh somewhere between 4 and 5 ounces each and the locomotives are about one pound each. That comes out to about 90 pounds.

[@thomaslevy2119]

@@oaktadopbok665 While size scales down, mass does not. HO scale is 1:87. If we took 1/87th of an actual 200 ton locomotive, then the model would have to weigh 2.29 tons. No amount of lead or depleted uranium could be crammed into the model to make it weigh that much. Anyone else want to crunch the numbers? There are probably others ways to figure it. I may not be right.

[@milwmodeler3752]

@@thomaslevy2119 No, your math is wrong. Divide 200 tons by 87 three times. Weight is a volume measurement (length x width x height). A 200 ton locomotive scales to 9.6 ounces. So most HO scale engines are considerably heavier than the prototype.

[@giuseppearditi7963]

Ok bil mi è molto piaciuto ho molti filmati di questo club

[@franzbrunner499]

if someone asked me "do you think in a model railway they can pull 283 cars?" i would have said immediately "no way" VERY INTERESTING -as camera never stayed fix at one point, could't manage to determine exact composition 2 locos ??cars 2 locos ?? cars 2 locos ?? cars 2 locos 109 cars 2 locos 63 cars 1 loco -does anybody know?

[@lbrendse]

Hello, to Answer your question. We put a set of locomotives about every 55-65 cars. Hope that helps

[@franzbrunner499]

@@lbrendse thank you, appreciate

[@hansfriess]

Did the whole train fit into the staging yard? Or did they have to break it up?

[@billr991]

See the beginning of the video at 1:28 showing the train in staging.

[@SoloContracting]

Does the museum have a set of standards for rolling stock tuning? Coupler make, wheel set make etc... Fantastic work.

[@billr991]

Thank you Solo Contracting. Volunteer's personal trains operating at the CMRM must meet certification standards that include wheel gauge, resistor equipped wheel sets, metal couplers, coupler height, car weight, and so on. Anyone interested in volunteer positions at the museum can learn more at: www.cmrm.org/volunteer/

[@Lukeaduke510]

You guys probably made some HO scale commuters so angry

[@gaugebrady5416]

Mr Moose you suck

[@alexdemartin8297]

super mega giga très très joli

[@TMandN]

WOW......just curious how long that is in feet?

[@billr991]

Around 200 feet.

[@Kevin-ev7hw]

Bill I seen that the train stopped at staging to pick up more cars. Can you guys set up the layout to run on a loop?

[@billr991]

Eastbound trains leave Lakeview and enter staging. When they leave staging, still in the same direction, they enter Klamath Falls. Continuing eastbound they leave Klamath Falls, climb to the Quartz Mountain summit, and then descend to Lakeview. Westbound its just the reverse sequence. So the answer is, in a word, yes. If you are interested in more detail, there is an animated track plan diagram at kzbin.info/www/bejne/g3iQiIKCm8qkhrc The animation shows a train running westbound.

[@andrewcrane2786]

That alot coal cars probably like 1,000

[@shawnmutant]

It said around 280

[@BrianXMoore]

Jeepers creepers!

[@bmw325iscoupe]

I wonder how amperzge was being pulled from 11 e ngines pulling 283 cars

[@billr991]

Don't know for sure. The layout has many power blocks. I'm guessing that not all the engines were ever in a single power block.

[@marcosbotucatu-sp8550]

👌💞

[@RyanTheRailfan]

Ive seen a 167 car coal at Alberta Free mo but this is amazing Are the cars owend by one person or by the club

[@billr991]

The cars and locomotives are owned by 5 different Colorado Model Railroad Museum volunteers. Owner's names are listed at kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZoindoGFd9J0Y9E

[@marcosbotucatu-sp8550]

😰

[@BossSpringsteen69]

How many knuckles did you break? LOL

[@billr991]

Zero. LOL

[@gunnyu.s.m.c8606]

interesting