Hi all, hope you are well on this early spring day…
I am in the midst of a fundamental reconsideration of my HO track plan, trying to get the most out of my 12X11 room. I’m thinking, after seeing a recent “small room” MR magazine article, of incorporating a couple more curve returns into my layout. But this will require having curve radius of about 18 inches in three places, and just slightly larger in another two, maybe a 20 inch radius there. If I wish to lengthen running lengths, I think I have to go with the sharp curves. I’m trying to ease the curves a bit with short straight sections, but at least two of the curves will be 18 inch types. I’m really hoping this will work.
Question to you seasoned MR’s is: Will my Walthers 62’ woodchip cars take this turn? It’s actually kinda good if i have to take it slowly around those curves (enforce a certain real discipline), but I want to be sure I’m not headed to constant de-railing.
My other cars are: 60’ Gunderson Hi-Cubes, 50’ box cars, Bethgon coalporters (which I guess are about40-50’?) and a bunch of flat cars and aggregate hoppers that are 50’ or less.
I have some new 7000 CU Greenville Woodchip hoppers that I guess are about 70’+, and am assuming they probably won’t make the turns. Is that correct?
My engines are Katos, Atlas’ and Protos, not huge engines: SD-38, SD-40, SD40-2, GP 35 and two SD-45s. I purposely kept to smaller motive power because of my room dimensions. I’m assuming they’ll be ok on these curves, is that right? Would that 70Mac that I have my eyes on be a problem with the 18 inch curves?
Many thanks, MR friends…hope you’l lend some advice here…
Every curve on my layout is 18" radius. The longest freight cars I run are 60 footers and I have a baggage car that’s 70+'. They all take the 18" curves Ok, though the baggage car looks a little funny with it’s ends hanging over. All my rolling stock is made for 18" radius. If yours is you’re Ok, if not, you’re gonna have problems.
There’s some good news for the 18" r and a lot of bad news. We’ll hit the bad news first…
Bad News:
Cars (and locomotives) will look toy-ish on the curves (though most ofwhat you listed as having will run albeit with speed restrictions)
If you have Body-mount couplers, they probably will have problems
The longer (65’+) cars will overhang a good distance (maybe 3/4 - 1" or more)
Good News
The cars you have listed will mostly all negotiate the curves
the shorter cars and locos will probably not need speed restrictions (40-50’ cars run 18" curves almost flawlessly)
Best bet to figure out how bad the cars will behave will be to grab a section (or 2 or 3) of flextrack and bend it into a spiral of progressively tighter radii (say maybe 22-24" down to 18"),it’ll help you determine the absolute minimum radius a particular car (without modification) can handle. from there you can then modify the car so that it can negotiate your curves better.
Well, I’m going to try to use easements in the curve to make it a bit smoother looking…read up on John Armstrong’s Realistic Track Planning book last night.
Maybe employ some extra tunnels to get more of a sweep, but I don’t want it to be rats nest of tunnels. [:D] I already got a few.
I may be able to get the radius up to 20" on one more. Hopefully that will help a bit. Geez, I don’t want it to look “toyish”!!! I know the big woodchip hoppers will be hanging off the edges, but hope the 62’ ones will look ok…
If you have room for easements, by all means use them. I had no such room so my straights go right into the curves with no easement, so it looks like the loco takes a lurch on the turn.
I also have a bunch of 18 inchers. Everytime I get a new long car or articulated engine, it seems to find a new problem area, but after I get the track work smoothed out, everything runs just fine. I, for one, like the look of the overhang on my articulateds. Much of the illusion of a good diorama is controled exageration, so the effect is fine with me. Long passanger cars look strange, but I don’t run many of those. I too am limited by space and 18 inchers alowed me to build what I want.
Curve easements should be curved. ie. a 24 inch radious or 22 inch leading into the 18 inch portion. This would hold true for both ends of the curve. If you can (have space) it would be best to use both. Using sectional track as an example, start the curve with a 24 inch section, then a 22 inch then two 18 inch sections, a 22 and a 24. Short sections of straight track in a tight curve will tend to cause the engines and cars to jerk repeatedly as they enter and exit the straight sections, re-entering the curves,
Super elevation helps a lot also, and the train looks much better too passing along the curve. The combination of Easements and Super Elevation is really worth the effort if as Jeff stated you have the room for Easements.
Unless these curves are going to to entered at 40+ scale mph, I wouldn’t bother with easements. As far as I am concerned, easements are for the faster tracks where tighter curves make them highly advantageous, if not essential, or they should be on the curves for looks and prototypical fidelity. If you are doing slow freight drags, I wouldn’t bother…instead, I’d try to make the entire curve 19".
Looks like I got enough room to make three of the curves 19" to 20", at least on my layout redesign drawing. One 18" curve is going to be under tunnel/behind the scenery. Hopefully this will help, 'cause I don’t want the effect to be cartoonish.
Superelevation…I’m using sectional track (yes, the lazy pre-ballasted kind (Unitrack), because i think ballasting is just tedious, and I’m always changing the design) - would I just use shims underneath? Never did superelevation before, but guess I’ll try now. What material would one use? How high to make the outside side?
Easements definetely help with overhang and such - see the John Armstrong book’s diagrams on it. You can do kind of a ‘quick and easy’ easement using sectional track by just using the next size up…like when going from a straightaway, use a section of 22" R track, then the 18" radius, then a section of 22" again coming out of the curve. Mild superelevation (making out the outside of the curve higher than the inside) is a good idea too.
I would guess about 90-95% of HO equipment will go thru 18"R curves, but the shorter your equipment, the better it will look.
Easments take up more room since it ‘widens’ the curve at the ends.
BETTER answer is to cut your board lengthwise in the middle and add an 8" wide board (cut to length). This increases your curveture option to a more ‘realistic’ 26"r.
Super elevation looks cool but creates more problems than it solves, which incidentally is only allowing more speed on curves . Save these fo a future layout with 48" r. curves and non sectional track.
If you do any 18" reverse curves 6 axel locos and/or 60’ cars can be a real problem. Longer couplers will sometimes help but a little straight track between the curved sections usually solve any problems, and slow speed is needed.
Too me anything 60’ or longer look bad on 18" curves.
I think i can help with this problem. I have all 18 radii turns and i run just about everything. I run 90 foot plug doors and they go slow around turns. I have a pcific it runs fine around them…but when my kato track set comes in i will have 22.5 turns as it says on the box. but i won’t have to worry about those tiny curves anymore and all that rr stuff i have will look perfect on it. i might even to be able to run my fathers brass allgeny if that is how you spell it. even though i can only have a oval with a 22 raddi turns.
18" radius is NO GOOD for modern-era HO. It’s toylike, unrealistic and WILL derail your trains.
DO NOT use 18" radius in HO unless you’re modeling the shortline 1950s and earlier or a traction operation. 18" radius track is a holdover from toy train sets.
If you do not have the room for curves larger than 18" radius, then convert to N scale. That’s what I did.
Hey folks, just wanted to thank you, and for helping me with all my questions these last weeks. You gave me the insight and inspiration to go back and do a version 2.0 on my HO layout redesign. Thought I’d run my final concept by you for a last sanity check. [:D]
The layout is HO, basically an 11’ x 10" space. (I’m staying HO, because of my existing stock plus I looked into N scale and the details would just be too hard to work with, for me…just a personal decision…but really appreciate all the N scale advice!). The Allegheny Highland is a shortline division of the rapidly growing Virginia Western Rail System. The theme of the layout will be a mountain pass, loosely inspired by Alleghany Tunnel, and the North Mountain sub on the old C&O lines emanating out of Clifton Forge, Va.
In my various research, ran across this site that was amazing to me…this guy did an phenomenal job with his modeling, and his site presentation, and although I’d never be able to get anywhere near his prototypical approach or modeling expertise, it was an inspiration. So I post that site here for anyone interested: http://kiddsjazz.tripod.com/alleghany/index.html
Makes me realize what a mediocre modeler I am…but I have fun. [:)]
Well, based on all your input, I worked out all the originally planned 18" radius curves into a three 26"+, two 24" and just two “near” 18", which will be hidden behind tunnels anyway…and I think i can get them to be at least 20" when laying the track, maybe even more…plus will be creating easements to any sharp turns.&
I run 18" curves, don’t know if my upcoming expansion will have 22" or not either. HO, and I’m too much into that to change to N. I’ve found 22 and 18 to be ok even at the ends but where I had something looked a bit odd was like at the end of the layout, an oval if you will, an 18" radius half circle with a straight piece in it. That’s about the only thing I thought was too odd so took that curve out and made it 22". It just looked too way out to have the train enter into the curve twice. All other times I just don’t pay notice. Even the 80+ hi-cubes roll through just fine. Some things we can help, but the ones we can’t we have to learn to overlook it. 6 axle diesels seem ok too. Old blue box athearn sd-45, bli rsd15, kato sd38 all do just fine. but yes they look better between the turns than they do at the turns. To close this reply to the post, my point = have fun!