I was considering purcahsing some athearn bilevel coaches to run a small commuter train, but before i go ahead and buy them i need to know if they can run on 18’ curves, looks to me like they won’t, would a longer shank coupler help at all or are these cars just to big?
I have 4 and they won’t run on my 22" radius with the stock couplers. They also don’t look too cool on the curves!! Look for something in the 60’ long range - better on turns and won’t look so silly![:D]
The Bombardier coaches really have a problem on small curves. The biggest problem is the plastic diaphrams that are suppose to connect the cars together. They are spring loaded but still don’t offer much flexibility and when they go around a tight curve they bind up causing a car to usually derail. You could remove them or get a more flexible replacement for them. Another fix is using a longer coupler, doing this will give them more room to get around those tight curves. I have a GO train I run at shows a lot and even on our clubs roughly 40" curves my cars diaphrams will rub against each other but I replaced the Athearn couplers with Kadee #5’s, the #5’s are actually a little shorter then the factory couplers and that causes the cars to be a little closer together. I think they look better that way as well.
I have two athearn bilevel trains (Metrolink and AMT) and they both operate with no issues at all on 22" radius, i have no idea about 18 but i would imagine issues would arrise.