How many cars can one PF motor actually pull?

[zephyr1934]

I do the same. Will be doing away with the switch soon and opening up one of the motors to alter the polarity so it runs in the same direction without the switch.

You can also mount both motors facing the same direction, e.g., wire coming out the side pointed to the rear of the locomotive. However, you need holes for the wires to come up in to the body to get to the receiver and battery, so it doesn't work well if you are using a standard train baseplate.

[snowvictim]

1 PF train motor manages to pull my double Horizon Express when fully charge, and it does so at a decent speed. It's quite surprising because of the weight distribution on the HE train and simply because of the weight of the double train itself. Nevertheless, I still run mine on a double motor because I don't want to overwork the motor.

In my opinion, the bottom line is - there's no objective value. Of course this concerns solely large models. Everything depends on the weight of the carriages, the setup of the train, the layout you're using. There are a lot of factors to consider. But as a rule of thumb I wouldn't recommend anymore than 3 passenger cars on 1 engine, just to keep your parts safe.