who would think that a Northern and a Santa Fe (referring to the type of steam engine, not road) could pull 37 cars up a over 2% helix? ATSF 3784 was originally pulling a short line of CSX hoppers but i got bored and added on the almost 20 bachmann N&W and CV&WS mixed hoppers onto the train. Asked Dispatch for permission to fire up my Chessie GP9 and he assigned me his bachmann DM&IR 2-10-2 to double head instead. What i thought would be a disaster because of the speed difference really didn't cause any accidents! a failed switch nearly put the 2-10-2 on the ground but the 2 carried on with the heavy load. A perfect example of how well Bachmann Steam runs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeEtcAoxqGY (video starts at 0:23 but skip to 1:30 for the double head)
That was a neat video. I don't have either of the steam engines in the video. But I was at one point looking at getting the DMIR 2-10-2 #511 because my local hobbytown had one and I like the DMIR. As for the Santa Fe 4-8-4, I have a similar engine. The Southern Pacific GS-4 #4449 from Bachmann's Standard line. And man can that engine pull a long train.