Have the teams assemble automobile engine-powered rail motor cars, (motorized hand cars) capable of running on standard gauge (4'-8 1/2") railroad tracks. As well, assemble 3 push cars (small, short flat work cars) to be pulled by the "engine". The real push cars and motor cars on railways are quite simple, so it is quite possible. For the competition portion of the show, take the "trains" to a rail museum or private railway, and have each team perform real switching (shunting) maneuvers to spot (locate) their cars on different sidings. You could also supply real push cars and have teams not only drop off cars, but also bring back a train of cars to the start point. An infinite number of combinations of switching maneuvers are possible, so each team would have to figure out the fastest and most efficient way to run the course. Members of each team would serve as "engineer" and switchman. I have actually run this type of course with motor and push cars at a railway museum (Fort Edmonton Park, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada) with a 2 1/2 mile flat oval of track (with spur tracks). It's model railroading in 1:1 Scale. Great fun!

but would have to run different each time.

-- Shane Mcdiarmid (wlm_craft@home.com), January 10, 2001

Answers

Lots of competitions emphasize SPEED. I think the beauty of a rail competition would be POWER. That said, it'd be cool to see a contest in which whoever builds a locomotive that can pull the heaviest load a certain distance wins.

1) The scale should be decided on convenience and practicality.. Anything from the standard 4'8.25" gauge down to say 1.5' gauge (good thing about small gauge is that the producers can have a test track built and the loco can even be Electrically-powered!).

2) Then the two teams compete to build the most powerful locomotive to pull the heaviest load (most number of cars, including one caboose with a team-member conductor!) a certain distance. They can choose whatever mode they want to power it-- Gasoline, steam, electricity, or even diesel-electric!

(grin) I'd love to see a Junkyard Wars locomotive parked next to an EMD 6600-horsepower SD90MAC for comparison.. :) :)

Thomas

-- Thomas (trh1@concentric.net), January 11, 2001.

I Agree with Thomas!

-- Aaron M. Brown (jude570@ctcn.net), January 11, 2001.

Fun Idea!! Steam Engine anyone????

-- Shawn Hiatt (edgecity@hawaii.rr.com), January 11, 2001.

Maybe there will be a working 6600 hp diesel train engine parked in the scrap heap, imagine the fights over that.

-- Doug Wenz (howser03@hotmail.com), January 11, 2001.

Well someone better tell Norfolk Southern's (ex-Conrail/Penn Central Railroad/Pennsylvania Railroad) Juniata in Altoona, PA to restart building or restoring the very vamous Pennsylvania Railroad's GG1 electric locomotive. And the "Junkyard Wars" locomotive would be parked next to the SD9043MAC from GM-EMD and the very famous Southern Railway 2-8-2 MIkado #4501 andI had my fun driving a ALCO RSD1 over at the Tennessee Valley Railroad in Chattanooga, Tennessee during "sparkle day" in March, 1999.

-- Jason Trew (JT2018@aol.com), January 11, 2001.

Steam engine definately!

-- christine Baker (christine___james_baker@hotmail.com), January 18, 2001.