In a recent thread, people were discussing the minimum radius of Walthers passenger cars - apparently it’s 24 inches.
Does anyone know if this means they will stay coupled when pulled or pushed by a 4-axle amtrak sized diesel? The diesel is of course much shorter than the passenger car. It would be sort of odd to have a passenger car that could take a particular radius, yet not be able to be pulled by an appropriate diesel.
(I’m aware of the NMRA RP’s for radius, as well as the layout design SIG recommendations. I just want to know if this will actually work, not what the preferred radius to use would be).
These don’t specifically say whether this type of combination will work or not.
Thanks in advance for anyone who may know! I may just have to get my hands on them myself and try.
(I’m trying to figure out if my layout will have large curves, operated from a “pit”, or have sharp, unscenicked curves that might be functional, but look horrible)
well, if the car says it’s minimum radius is 24" - there’s no real way around it (although, with easements you might be able to get it to 22… if you’re buletproof in your tracklaying).
The big reason(s) for min raduis:
coupler overhang → if it overhangs too far, it’ll esentially rip free of what it’s coupled to, or pull the other car off the track
truck lateral mobility → if the truck has a limited range of movement, a curve thats tighter than that will cause it to derail
overhang → the car will overhang the curve A LOT at it’s minimum radius…
Thanks for the input. I do understand what leads to minimum radius. I’m questioning whether for Walthers passenger cars, the 24" min radius includes pulling/pushing with a shorter diesel.
That is, the spec referring to cars with no engine is purely academic, since I need to pull/push them with a shorter locomotive.
I have 9 or 10 of the Walthers 85’ passenger cars. I posted a month or 2 ago that they won’t all go around 22" radius. The odd thing is that only some of the boxes state 24" on them, and some of the ones that will take 22" & 19" had the 24" on the box, and most of the ones that won’t take 22" did not have 24" on the box! I usually use a Challenger to pull them, but I have used my Veranda Turbine, which has a 40’ or so long tender, without a derail problem going forward - don’t recall if I tried backing and can’t right now as I’m “winterizing” the layout for the grandkids for Christmas. Hope this answers your question.
First I want to apologize for sounding harsh but,IMHO this needs to be said to all.
I can not stress the importance of using Walthers or any manufacturers recommend curve size.You see that recommendation is not only a guide but,the the smallest size operational curve for these cars that will still provide smooth and trouble free operation.Heed the manufacturers curve recommendations as this will give you smoother operations for long wheel base engines and cars.
As far as making a reverse move with the Walthers-or any brand- full length passenger cars that should be easily done after all you can back 86 foot freight cars with ease.I would expect nothing less out of these high dollar passenger cars.
oh, I guess I misunderstood what you were asking then. Although, I don’t think a shorter loco will have the same overhang as the cars, so you might have to play with it for a while, or just bite the bullet and go with the larger radius curves…
Even real railroads sometimes use intermediate sized cars between short locos and long passenger cars and their minimum operational radius make ours look like square angles. As others have said I would guess the issue would be the coupler swing to the outside of the curve is going to be much greater on the car than it is on the locomotive. However some locomotives like the Alco RS-3 have the trucks set pretty far into the frame so that the coupler overhang is still outrageous (on Atlas brand at least). But if it is pushing is it important that it be coupled?
Two questions should be asked. What is the minimum radius a piece of equipment will operate reliably on and what size would it look good doing so. There is probably a huge disconnect when you are talking about 85’ cars. I would go with the manufacturers recommendations for the answer to the first question. As for the second, I wouldn’t even consider using an 85’ car on anything less than a 36" radius. While I can understand the desire for some modelers to run large equipment on small layouts, this is hobby of compromises and you have a choice of running prototypical length cars on radii that will make them look very unprototypical, or you can opt for shorter length cars that will look much better rounding tight curves. I think the shorter length would be much less noticable than to see trains of length passenger cars folding sharply as they go around turns. There are several manufacturers that make 60 and 70 footers that are very good looking despite there less than prototypical length. I have the luxury of a large basement that allows me broad curves and full length passenger trains on my mainline but I also am planning a branchline which will have tighter turns and I have already acquired a set of Rivarossi 60 footers that will look just fine on it. I really don’t care if there was ever a prototype for these cars. In my world, the branchline RR special ordered these units to operate on their tight curves. Although Rivarossi has folded, I believe Trainworld still has these in stock and Athearn also makes 70’ heavyweight equipment. I don’t know if they still offer short steamlined equipment as well.
If a long passenger car takes 24"radius, a 4 axel loco could do it. Long as none of your equpment does not go over their own minimum radius, you are fine.
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. If a car is super long, it will have a lot of overhang. If it’s short, it will not. If one is short and one is long, I’m pretty sure they’d have more difficulties. (I’d need to get some real dimensions and create a scale drawing to help make the point).
What I was really hoping for was someone to say, “Yes, I pull 85ft passenger cars with a 4-axle diesel”, or something similar.
Ivanhen, thanks for your evidence of pulling 85 footer’s with a steam loco with a tender. The tender represents the “super short” loco, and that sounds like some good evidence that a short loco will work.
Anyone else have any actual experience with 85 footers and short loco’s on 24" curves?
(I appreciate all the thoughts on using as large curves as possible, etc., but I may use unscenicked curves to be able to have passenger trains, in which case I won’t care what they look like. Just consider it the same as people who use unpainted Atlas code 100 track in their staging, while they might use Micro Engineering code 70 on the rest of the layout, etc.)
You did not get what I said. I a car that has a minimum radius of 22", it would perform great on 24" radius. Same with a 4 axel diesel that requires only 18" radius. It will perform WAY BETTER on you 24" radius. So, everything wound be fine, And yes, I do pulld superliners and caltrain bombardier cars with a four axel F40-ph. long as the track is OVER the minimum radius for your longest car… like I said before…you are fine. This goes for everything
For what it is worth, I have hauled four Walthers Amfleet cars with a Bachmann Spectrum F40PH around 18" radius curves with no problems at all, but these cars had no published curve restrictions and the inside frame trucks help. The Viewliner sleeper has outside frame trucks and carried a warning about a 22" minimum radius. This could be overcome by transferring the fixed outside secondary spring set to the rotating truck frame.
FWIW - I pull the 85 ft cars behind an ALCO PA or FA. The problems when they occur are more to do with the truck hanging up on the undercarraige and not with overhang of the cars/loco. Texas Zepher got it right, the big deal is the distance between the pivot point on the truck and the center of the coupler.With the locos being close to prototype and having a fair old bit of distance, and the coaches being more closely spaced, this has not typically been a problem. Haven’t tried moving coaches with my 44 Tonner out of the yard yet. Hope this helps. J.R.
