How is my brain nowadays??? (Funicular layout)

[ChrisGreaves]

As far as the string or twine used. Very fine fishing twine comes to mind. Can't think what else could work as by nature cotton fibres and the like do slightly add friction, but one could lightly grease cotton with a waxy substance that is dry so it does not stick? Some dry bicycle chain lubes are an idea.

Thanks Mountain. I will seek out a fine cord, even if I have to untwist my various stocks of cotton cord, and give pure-gravity another try.

In the meantime ny brain is percolating the idea of using intercity T-scale powered units as mules, (a la Panama Canal) or even building an ore-wagon around the motive unit, so there appears to be just an ore wagon working its way up and down. From my notes:-

Think of the tiny motor in a 3mm-gauge loco. Too small for me to consider engineering. However I might fit a “mule” casing over the supplied unit.

The 3 mm track might be placed inside the 16.5 mm track that carries the ore wagons. Strictly speaking, the 16.5 mm rails are laid outside the zero-tolerance 3 mm rails.
Remember now that we store energy in a chemical form (or can I make use of a capacitor for storage?) so that the model funicular is an electrical railway, but to the viewer it is powered solely by gravity. There are no external wires.
Perhaps the ore wagons are built surrounding the motive unit. The motive unit is merely (!) a channel of energy flowing forth (downhill) into storage and back (uphill) flowing out of storage.

Cheers, Chris

[Mountain]

Another way is to simply motorise the pulley at the top. Doing this will eliminate the friction issue and still allow a form of gravity via the rope.

[ChrisGreaves]

(5) Rakes being equal length, they could operate continuously, seeming to be a perpetual-motion machine.

It's not my fault; this town, and especially my house-lot, are far too interesting to sit at the table and build stuff.
That said, the idea of a self-powered model is still my goal.

"Thanks to energy recuperation on a fully-laden downhill stretch, the batteries of the Infinity Train store enough energy to power the homeward journey across the Pilbara in Western Australia without extra fuel or external charging." says the article Fortescue rides the Infinity Train. I'd got as far as using mung beans as "gravity pellets", but batteries seems better. I note that an earlier contact used the mass of coal being shifted off a scarp at Wollongong was a pioneer.

Wikipedia has an article on the Fortescue railway line.

The line is said to be 620 Km long, with 3 Km-long trains, fourteen trains per day.
Cheers, Chris

[Bigmet]

"Thanks to energy recuperation on a fully-laden downhill stretch, the batteries of the Infinity Train store enough energy to power the homeward journey across the Pilbara in Western Australia without extra fuel or external charging."

That revived memories of 'the runaway ore train' some years back on the BHP route from the iron ore mountain to Port Hedland; hopefully the kinetic energy recovery performs better than that braking system that 'didn't'.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/in ... o-2018-018