Since I’ve already asked how much it’ll cost to move one of the engines to Ohio,
(And then learning that now is not the time to contact them due to the passing of Katie Gramling, who played a HUGE part behind the scenes as a creative consultant, at the age of 49 on Thanksgiving Morning), I’ve elected to ask a different question which is how many cars could say, LVC.Co 126 pull. Thanks and if anyone who has had experience with the engine on one of its trains, that would be especially helpful.

Rest In Peace, Katie B. Gramling
Born, June 4, 1972
Died, November 25, 2021
Thank you for contributing so much to your family’s “hobby.”
You helped introduce more people to the power of steam locomotives,
and I especially thank you for all you’ve done with your family.
And perhaps we’ll all meet again, some sunny day.

That depends entirely on how heavy your cars are, and how steep are your grades. A tiny engine will pull a surprisingly long train on dead level, straight track. Add a 1% grade, and the engine's tonnage rating is cut to 1/6 of its rating on the level.

The cars would probably be an ex C&O boom idler car (CSX number was 940062) converted to an open air car, a ex EJ&E offset cupola caboose(pretty sure it’s number is 544) and probably an ex L&N/SCL Transfer Caboose(which I found out to be L&N 6611, now CSX 16611 and was part of the last order of cabooses for that railroad.) As for the grade, as you return up to the boarding platform or are just going on to the mainline, there is I think either a 0.2 or 0.3% grade. It wouldn’t be to bad on either of the engines I hope.
As for weight, the EJ&E caboose is 53000 lbs, the open air car I don’t know, and the L&N/SCL caboose I don’t know about either.

Judging by some of the trains that I have seen behind the Gramling engines, I would think any one of their locomotives should be able to handle that on your trackage.

The grade on the main from Crownhill to Sugar Creek bridge is -0.61% to the west. The curves through Hugo will add some drag, too. Without getting into the math, either the 0-4-0 or 0-6-0 will easily handle the 501, 330, 16611 without any problems.

These little engines can start heavy trains. That is there design. But pulling a train over the road? That is difficult and hard on the locomotive.

"A steamer will run a train it can't start; a diesel[-electric] will start a train it can't run."

Any Europeans that can tell us about diesel-hydraulics in this situation?

The discussion here is about little tank engines, correct? They have little wheels and they are great for moving cuts of cars around, but they don’t have the boiler capacity to run at speed for long distances with a heavy train. You are going to be working them too hard and wearing them out.

I agree with softwerkslex on this, plus the track is, as jayrod said, it’s a basically 0.6% grade with 3(or 2) cars on it. Plus it’s a mile of track which really shouldn’t wear it out too much(unless some wheel slip came into the mix but it shouldn’t come to that)

In 2010, the first year Railroad Museum of New England had a visiting Gramling locomotive, 0-4-0T #75 took three Canadian National coaches, at 140,000 lbs each, up two miles of 1.15% grade at Thomaston, Conn. This was from a standing start on about .5% grade at Thomaston Station. Speed was about 10 mph. Rated tractive effort is about 16,500 lbs for #75.

The tank locomotives have smaller boilers than equivalent "road engines" of about the same size, which limits reserve steaming capacity. That was apparent from our experiment. The fireman (John Gramling, as I recall), was shoveling furiously!

#75's trip up that section of line, across Thomaston Dam, was the first steam operation since the line was relocated and built in 1960.

Howard P.

I came down to visit the RMNE to ride and photograph those trains every year that the Gramlings visited. The little saddletankers seemed to have no problems with those heavyweights. One of my photos even depicts 3 of them with a caboose on the end. I was not fortunate enough to visit on the day you folks took Flagg 75 up on the Thomaston Dam, or the day when you did a caboose hop to Torrington. I would love to have seen that. I was born in Torrington.....way too late to ever see a steam engine operate there. The trains of my youth were all pulled by RS-3s.

For the person who asked about how much these locos can pull, take a look at some of my photos of the Thomaston, CT operation, at the attached link:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/112261457@N06/albums/72157718462604983/with/50987731476/

/Kevin Madore

Kevin -

Thanks for posting this link to your photos of the Gramlings engines at RMNE. Your shot at Thomaston from 2010 of Flagg 75 and PRR (REA) X29 boxcar # 9495/B&M wood boxcar/tank car next to the old mill building, is possibly the best replication of the steam era I have seen. Engineer looking out the cab and brakeman signaling, is a classic. Even beats the freight train shot taken at HVRM with NKP 2-8-4 # 765! Wish there had been more of those mill shots w/freight cars in the subsequent visits of 75 and then 126, to RMNE.

Les

The 75 and PRR X29 photos were a setup done early on a Sunday morning, the first year 75 was at Thomaston. The image I had in mind was based on the Edgemoor & Manetta tank engine, switching boxcars at a mill in SC (?). It was just about the last "real" steam in the US, lasting into 1970 or so.

I set the shots up using our PRR boxcar, and Barb Walcott's Model A Ford pickup, and the RMNE crew reported a little early to get things into position. The shoot was for me and a couple of other RMNE crew/photographers (Hal Reiser was one). We also used two of our B&M XM-1 boxcars. As I recall, Mr. Madore lucked into this, and got some good images, without the cost of a "Photo Charter".

The Plume & Atwood rolling mill in the background was demolished in 2013, after a partial roof collapse.

Howard P.

Howard -

Thanks for the info on the setup. Is the tank car in the photos, also part of the RMNE freight car collection?

Les

Well, a little of both actually. I had purchased a ticket on the MBRRE photo charter, which would be run later that day, after the public passenger runs were completed. Some of the photos you see in that album were from that event. I arrived early, figuring I could get a few shots of the regular passenger runs, before the charter and just happened to pull in when the switching was being done. It looked like a private event, so I just stood back until being invited to take pictures by Ms. Walcott. If someone had been selling tickets to this event, I would have signed up in a heartbeat.

I’m always up for a good steam charter. Even in semi-pandemic 2021, I think I spent over $4K in just charter tickets alone, not to mention airline tickets, rental cars, hotels, etc. The vast majority of my stuff on Flickr came from private charters organized by Lerro, HTP, Dynamo, Southern Rail, Franz, Trains, FOCTS, etc.

/Kevin Madore