I've got a train to catch

[braincraft]

I want to have a runaway train rescue in a game I've got going, so I turn to p476 of Fred, and... nothing. No stats for trains, anywhere. The Breaking Things section even has stats for a railroad car, but it still seems like a glaring oversight. How many superheroes have made it their business to save, lift, punch in half, or simply be more powerful than a locomotive? How can I do that when I don't know how big, how fast, how strong that locomotive is?

 

For that matter, what kinds of differences would there be between old-style steam locomotives, present-day subway cars, modern bullet trains, and futuristic intercontinental freight maglev? Does getting hit by a train hurt more if there are more cars behind it? I know nothing about trains, so somebody help me out, here!

 

(Also, if anyone could give me an estimate on the weight of loaded and unloaded seagoing cargo liners, I'd appreciate it.)

[Doc Democracy]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Well, my initial steer would be to the Ultimate Vehicle (you do something with this Mr Greenwade?).

 

The stats for the rail car are probably useful to you - you can work out how many cars make up the train and thus the STR it would require to pull that weight (or work against it). Then you have the speed issue.

 

If a train is coming at you full tilt, then it is a move through (using the weight of the train as the STR value and velocity as normal). If your superhero is simply going to smash into it then he'll need to be able to take that hit. If not then he is going to need to be able to move as fast as the train to get in front of it and then use abilities to slow it down. STR vs STR necessary to get some traction going and then oppose the vehicles acceleration and current speed with whatever is being used to stop it.

 

I would leave it open to the players to decide how to do that. KB resistance, STR, flight and more creative things such as melting the wheels to reduce their traction, creating ice between the rails and the wheels etc.

 

Doc

[gojira]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Champions has rules for stopping trains. Use the rules for stopping things on p. 365 of 5er, or the rules for catching things on p. 434 or 5er.

 

Oops, I take it back. Champions has busses, asteroids, avalanches, tidal waves, but no trains. Hmm. Buses are STR 55 (tops) and speed up to 100". I think trains would probably be stronger, but lower speed. STR 60-75, up to 50" of movement sound about right?

[Manic Typist]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

I think trains can outpace buses.

[Just Joe]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Buses are STR 55 (tops) and speed up to 100". I think trains would probably be stronger' date=' but lower speed. STR 60-75, up to 50" of movement sound about right?[/quote']

 

Actually, though trains accelerate more slowly than buses (much more slowly, when pulling heavy loads), they aren't necessarily slower. The fastest steam train on record (the Mallard) went over 100 mph (136 maybe?). Some modern trains can really cook, especially some of them in France and Japan.

[Vanguard]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

As was stated, TUV has a train or a locomotive I believe and I think The Vehicle Source book lists train cars . .

 

Been a while since I looked so I could be wrong.

[schir1964]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

There was an old Dark Champions supplement called "Shadows Of The City" that had a scenario that included a runaway train and the characters had to try to stop it. It had details on how much STR, damage, and all that fun stuff that the train had.

 

I think there were some rules on how much STR must be applied in a constant manner to slow it down.

 

I see no reason the information in that supplement wouldn't translate over directly.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

The stats for the rail car are probably useful to you - you can work out how many cars make up the train and thus the STR it would require to pull that weight (or work against it). Then you have the speed issue.

This is a wierd issue I noticed in TUV. It says that pulling vehicles (like train engines and horses pulling wagons and coaches, etc.) need enough STR to *lift* the thing they're towing. This is patently ridiculous. A horse doesn't need to be able to lift the wagon. A train engine doesn't need to be able to lift the sum of its cars. The STR needed is just to overcome the friction (which is significantly lower than the full weight when you're on smooth rails) and whatever incline you might have to climb.

[SuperKlaus]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

According to the Vehicle Sourcebook:

 

A steam locomotive has 55 STR (mass 50 tons), 20 BODY, 5 DEF, 2 SPD, 10 DEX and moves along at 20" / 80". The wheels are DEF 6, BODY 5. There's some stuff about taking damage if it moves too fast that I honestly don't care to summarize.

 

A bullet train has 60 STR, same DEX and DEF, 23 BODY, one more point of BODY in the wheels and possesses not only 4 SPD but 27" / 108" movement. Good luck stopping that one.

 

A subway car has 55 STR, same DEX and DEF, 22 BODY, 6 BODY wheels like the bullet train and 4 SPD but only 10" / 40" movement.

 

A maglev train is up to you, being a creation of the future. These stats should help you create something suitably impressive by comparison.

 

A loaded cargo ship can weigh hundreds of thousands of tons. Try Google or Wikipedia, I'm certain figures can be found.

 

Have fun! Stopping trains does indeed make for awesome scenarios.

[Outsider]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

And remember, heroes, even if you can take the 38D6 move through from the locomotive (55 STR + 80"/3) without getting knocked back, stopping the train cold isnt always a good thing!

 

First, going from 80" of movement to 0" in a phase will derail all the cars unless you are stopping it with some funky AE TK that hits the whole train at once. If you've managed to evacuate all the passengers (and the engineers) and you dont mind property damage, go for it.

 

Second, you will destroy the locomotive. With 5 DEF and 20 BOD, it cant take the full damage of its own move through if you aren't knocked back. Even if you are, it will still take 14 BODY, on average, and be seriously damaged. And still be barrelling down the tracks.

[Trebuchet]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Amtrak passenger trains are limited by law to 88 mph; they can physically go faster. IIRC freight trains (except those carrying hazardous materials) can go a maximum of 70 mph by federal law. And most curves and grades have posted speed limits which are slower.

 

A large train with a heavy cargo such as coal might have as many as 6 or 7 locomotive engines and weigh 10,000 tons (often including a radio-controlled engine or two at the rear of the consist to push).

 

The easiest and safest weight to stop a train is to simply cut the airbrake line that runs through the entire train front to rear and controls the train's airbrakes. Without air pressure, all the brakes lock up and the train will stop (although it's possible enough locomotives pulling might be able to pull against the brakes, that's very unlikely. At the very least it would slow the train down enormously).

[Outsider]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

I hadn't worked it out before, but :

 

80"/phase at SPD 2 = 160"/turn = 320m/12 sec = 1600m/minute = 1 mile/minute = 60 MPH.

 

Seems HERO trains are a bit slow...

[BobGreenwade]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Well' date=' my initial steer would be to the Ultimate Vehicle (you do something with this Mr Greenwade?).[/quote']Vanguard caught it:

As was stated' date=' TUV has a train or a locomotive I believe and I think The Vehicle Source book lists train cars . .[/quote']...though I didn't see where it was stated in this detail previously.

This is a wierd issue I noticed in TUV. It says that pulling vehicles (like train engines and horses pulling wagons and coaches' date=' etc.) need enough STR to *lift* the thing they're towing. This is patently ridiculous. A horse doesn't need to be able to lift the wagon. A train engine doesn't need to be able to lift the sum of its cars. The STR needed is just to overcome the friction (which is significantly lower than the full weight when you're on smooth rails) and whatever incline you might have to climb.[/quote']I personally disavow this rule. My manuscript called for half that much STR (based on the Casual STR rule), and I continue to stick by that call.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Of course "lifting" according to the rulebook definition of Strength is "the maximum amount of weight he can just manage to lift off the ground, stagger with for a step or two, then drop." Requiring the vehicle to be able to "lift" what it can pull may still be excessive, but not ridiculously so.

[gojira]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Interestingly, the measurement of power output of an engine historically was measured from lifting abitlity.

 

The term horsepower was invented by the engineer James Watt in 1782. Watt lived from 1736 to 1819 and is most famous for his work on improving the performance of steam engines.

 

Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals. He found that, on average, a mine pony could do 22,000 foot-pounds (lift a bucket of coal weighing 22,000 lbs a distance of 1 foot) of work in a minute. He then increased that number by 50 percent and fixed the measurement of horsepower at 33,000 foot-pounds of work in one minute.

 

Under this system, one horsepower is defined as:

 

1 hp = 33,000 ft·pound-force·min−1 = exactly 745.69987158227022 W

 

Shouldn't be too hard to convert STR into horsepower...

[SuperKlaus]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

I hadn't worked it out before, but :

 

80"/phase at SPD 2 = 160"/turn = 320m/12 sec = 1600m/minute = 1 mile/minute = 60 MPH.

 

Seems HERO trains are a bit slow...

 

Well you are talking about the steam engines of the Old West there. 60 MPH is pretty much dead-on from what I know - I think those trains might be where the expressions "mile a minute" and "going like sixty" come from.

 

The bullet train blows those guys out of the water, or off the rails if you prefer.

[Spidey88]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

A bit of a threadjack, but my two cents on the whole pulling/pushing things issue:

 

I'm fairly certain I couldn't even lift a quarter of my car's weight (just off the ground, anyway - I might be able to strain and budge it in some sort of controlled leg press scenario), but on level ground I could push it at a decent jogging pace.

 

There are guys who've moved train engines, passenger airliners, etc on level ground (one guy has done both, pulling with his teeth for world record attempts), but those are in ideal conditions, and also very slowly - just inching that engine along is not the same as stopping it when it's about to go over the broken bridge.

 

In excellent conditions, I'd be willing to let PC's get away with moving very heavy things, but the speed they'd be able to move it at would be based on their strength. For super-heavy things, maybe look at their STR as a fraction of what would be needed to lift the object, and multiply their normal running speed by that fraction.

 

Eg. Dr. Jones has a STR 15 and is trying to budge the idle freight car away from the nitroglycerin charge under the tracks. His STR is sufficient to lift about 1/500 the weight of the car, and his running speed is 8", so he can move the car at a blistering (8 x (1/500)) = 0.016". Of course, if the engine is running or if he has to push uphill, he's screwed.

 

Thoughts?

 

Trebuchet: so Amtrak trains go fast enough to activate a flux capacitor? Good to know!

[Outsider]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Well you are talking about the steam engines of the Old West there. 60 MPH is pretty much dead-on from what I know - I think those trains might be where the expressions "mile a minute" and "going like sixty" come from.

 

The bullet train blows those guys out of the water, or off the rails if you prefer.

 

 

I was thinking of later (20th century) steam locomotives, which were considerably more powerful than their old west predecessors.

[archermoo]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Amtrak passenger trains are limited by law to 88 mph; they can physically go faster. IIRC freight trains (except those carrying hazardous materials) can go a maximum of 70 mph by federal law. And most curves and grades have posted speed limits which are slower.

 

Fastest I've seen a BART train go was 78, at least according to its speedometer. (I generally sit in the first car, which has a glass door seperating the driver from the rest of the car)

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Of course "lifting" according to the rulebook definition of Strength is "the maximum amount of weight he can just manage to lift off the ground' date=' stagger with for a step or two, then drop." Requiring the vehicle to be able to "lift" what it can pull may still be excessive, but not ridiculously so.[/quote']

I'm afraid I still think it's "ridiculously excessive." Along the lines of what Spidey88 pointed out, I've pulled heavy equipment on a dolly along a smooth floor, that I couldn't have lifted if I pushed my strength by 15. I've moved furniture my sliding it along the floor with only "casual" strength that would be very difficult to lift with my full strength.

 

It might have been (or might still be!) useful to have a Friction Table, along with the STR lifting table. List coefficients of friction for various conditions, which can then be multiplied by the weight of the object being moved and then compared to STR. And yes, I know some people's sphincters tighten up at the mere mention of the word "multiply" - "Oh, no! Math! One extra calculation to do! Help!" Sorry. Such a table would probably need no more than a dozen entries, maybe two dozen if you really want to break it down into more detail.

 

Hmmm... a dozen CoF entries, how 'bout:

 

Sliding along

* ground (grass/dirt/gravel)

* pavement (fairly rough concrete/asphault/smooth dirt path/cobblestone)

* smooth floor (tile/linoleum/smooth concrete)

* carpet

* snow/ice

* snow/ice with runners/skis

Rolling with

* car-like rubber tires on ground

* car-like rubber tires on pavement

* wooden wheels (horse-drawn carriage) along gound

* wooden wheels (horse-drawn carriage) along pavement

* train-like metal wheels on train tracks

* tank treads (on pretty much anything)

 

There! A dozen that ought to cover most game situations. Unfortunately, I don't have the actual numbers for these, but I know an internet that probably does.

[McCoy]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

So did anyone work out the horsepower of a locomotive? I did but don't trust my answer. It was in billions.

[Trebuchet]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

So did anyone work out the horsepower of a locomotive? I did but don't trust my answer. It was in billions.

Modern diesel-electric locomotive engines typically generate between 5000 and 7000 horsepower. Keep in mind most consists (the locomotive engine(s) and attached cars) have multiple engines.

 

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/RadmilaIlyayeva.shtml

[McCoy]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Modern diesel-electric locomotive engines typically generate between 5000 and 7000 horsepower. Keep in mind most consists (the locomotive engine(s) and attached cars) have multiple engines.

 

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/RadmilaIlyayeva.shtml

Thank you. Looks like my figures were off by about six orders of magnitude. Probably should have taken that square root near Albuquerque

[BobGreenwade]

Re: I've got a train to catch

 

Probably should have taken that square root near Albuquerque

Then your answer to "Do you want fries with that?" should be, "Yes."

 

After all, French fries are square roots.

 

(...two, three, four...)