Most have probably seen my post about derailing. For those that have 89ers and have unwanted uncoupling on curves, it all boils down to one thing-couplers. I guarantee that if you use horn-hook couplers in an 89er, you will never get it around without stopping the train and recoupling, especially on the Walthers 89’ Hi-cube boxcar, the exact model I have, in a CSX YN3 scheme. I tried horn-hooks on it, and needless to say, I haven’t run it for a while. I found a spring to a Bachmann E-Z Mate Mark-II knuckle and threw it on a long necked model. I now have that car as Number 2 in my consist. I hope anyone with this problem benefits from this post.
Sure everything is not meant to run on 22" radius curves, but what’s wrong with having a solution that will allow the people that don’t have the room for 30" radius curves that want to run long equipment.
There’s always a solution to issues like this, I have 24" radius curves and I want to run 85’ Streamliners, and my solution was the long shank KD #26 couplers.
Long shank couplers or talgo couples attached to wheelsets can help. but the bigger/longer the item is, the less it will on the tighter curves, even as “broad” as 22"- even 24".
Another solution:
COncor is making a set of HO 65 scale foot “shorty passenger cars” that are designed to run confortably on as little as 18"R curves. They look great!
Preorders are being taken now, and you may qualify of a 20% discount for early ordering. THey DO NOT CHARGE your card until they ship, AND delivery is expected early 2011. If you preorder, they will call you first to make sure you still want the product before shipping. THere are 14 models, including two unlettered versions. CALL THEM TO ORDER, DO NOT ORDER ONLINE, THOUGH- Their website is not secure and somewhere on there they tell you so!!.
I didn’t say you “couldn’t” make them run on that radius, but to be polite they look extremely out of place, but…as the old saying goes, “it’s your RR, run it the way you want”. If it doesn’t bother you it sure as heck doesn’t bother me.
My comment was that they are not “designed” to run on short radius curves for a reason, now if you modify them enough you could probably make them run on a 15" radius curve, again, your RR, but they still aren’t designed for that, I won’t go into how it looks as apparently that isn’t an issue for you.