I do not care about HO track radius. I am in N scale. All of my diesel engines run fine around a minimum 16" radius curve. The longest engine that I have is a U50B with B-B+B-B trucks and an SD9043MC with C-C trucks.
Rio’s advice was not so much about HO scale radii as such, but rather about radii which are suitable not only for good operations, but also for good-looking operations.
If you have sufficient room to allow curves wider than your good-enough radii of 16", I would encourage you to utilise that room to your advantage, as it’s one of the true advantages of N scale - I think that you will come to appreciate the more realistic appearance.
Wayne
Uh huh, I get that, which is why I included the N scale equivelents in the discussion. See the numbers after the slash / .
Hear him ^, or not.
caldreamer, I do understand there are limitations - in my case to fit the kind of operation I want, there is definitely a limitation to the curves I will be using - I just can’t squeeze much more than I am. If you can increase radii beyond 16 inches, at least in some places, you won’t regret it.
(edited) Your brain isn’t being cheated by a spell. I live in Colorado Springs, Colorado, so I know that there is indeed a divide in that area, but it’s NOT the Continental divide or a continental divide at all. It’s called the Palmer Divide. It’s actually a ridge that runs East from the town of Palmer Lake for about 80 miles toward the town of Limon and separates the South Platte river basin from the Arkansas River basin. There, that’s my [2c] worth[swg]
I only said the “cheeted by a spell” comment for laughs.
Ain’t no continental divide geographically between Denver and Pueblo - no way. Ok I don’t live there but I’ve driven Pueblo - Denver, Pueblo to Glenwood Springs via Independence Pass and Denver west to California. It’s academic.
But as some say, “it’s your railroad” …
As an aside, been re-watching the old ST:TNG episodes and watched the 2-parter with the Borg attack at wolf359. Thankfully Data was able to connect to the collective and put them to sleep to destroy the cube!
That’s going to be quite an impressive layout. I envy you![bow] Are you going to add the the downtown Colorado Springs yard as well? I’ve always liked the looks of the coal-fired Martin Drake power plant that’s on a spur just south of that yard. If you are, it sounds like it would be a fun thing to model.
I have not gotten that far yet. Right now I am placing the tracing paper over the grid paper which has the floor layout. I like the idea of the Colorado sprigns yard and power plant. I will look into it when I get that far. Thanks for the suggestion.
If you are using paper, you can get pads of 11x17 inch graph paper at stores like Staples that has a grid on it with IIRC, for squares to an inch. Then you can manually draw in the boundary’s of the room to scale.
Example:
I measured all the walls in my train room on this graph paper to a scale of two squares equal 1 foot. Along the left of the drawing is a long wall of 27.5 feet. I measured all the other walls and drew them in. That way you don’t need to relay on a paper plan and you can draw it all to a scale that is as big as you can fit on the 11 x 17 paper. Add any other features that may be important like door ways, closets, stairs etc.
Once you have all of that, you can make some photo copies if need be for multiple attempts at various layout drawings.
On the drawing, draw a scale bar on it as well, a common practice for scale engineering drawings. That way you can take a compass and set it for various radii and draw in curves where they will go. You can experiment a bit to see what the largest curves are that will fit in any given location, hopefully in some locations you can go bigger than the planned 16 inches. I did this on my track plan - I have drawn in bigger than my minimum where i could manage.
Helpful tools to have would be a good eraser, compass, scale rule and eraser shield.
That is exactly what I am doing. I have the graph paper taped together to give me the grid area that I need to draw the layout on. I was at the new house last week and did exact measurements of the basement. It is 52’7" long and 29’4" wide. The stairs come down at one end into the basement and do not interfere with layout. I measured the location of all steel pipes holding up the house. Location and size of the furnace, sump pump and water heater. I have them scaled on the graph paper. I am using 4 squares to the foot. I have placed tracing paper over the floor plan and have starting to mark out the layout. When this is done, I will begin marking our the track, yards, industries, etc.
As I am designing my new layout, I have found that since I have twice as much space as necessary for an N scale layout, I will be expanding my curves from 16 to 18 inch minimum radius.
Awsome! Your trains will thank you!
Very wise move, you will be very glad you did. Operation will be better, appearance will be better.
Sheldon
Seeing as I use 15 inch curves, I can testify that longer rolling stock has issues even on that moderate radius (my U28C looks horrible, and my 80’ auto rack loves to derail!). A great choice moving up to 18 inches! I say give those trains as wide a radius as your space will allow!
I have fineally finished designing my new layout. It will have a mainline of 725 feet. Pueblo (the lowest point on the layout will be at 38 inches. I am now working out location of the towns that I wish to represent on my layout based upon their mile posts. I will also be using the actual grades for the Pikes Peak Sub, which run from .90 to 1.50 percent.
Just an update. I have worked out the track height from Denver to just south of Palmer Lake. The highest point on the layout will be 16.5 inches higher than Denver. Next step is to measure and place the towns down to Pueblo, making sure that I have clearance for the Pueblo staging under Denver staging…