Can anyone tell me what the minimum radius that can be found on the old Feather River Western Pacific line? I’m wondering how it would look in HO scale.
The Spanish Fork Bridge seemed to have about a 10 degree curve on the through route, which scales out to approximately nine feet five inch radius in HO. The tunnel route that completed the Keddie Wye looked sharper - about 15 degrees, which is still well over six feet in radius. It would look impressive, yes - but are you willing to devote your entire basement to one scene?
From a perusal to the 1981 Track Charts, it appears the sharpest curves on the main line are just a little over 10 degrees. A 10 deg curve is a radius of approximately 573 feet. ( 6 ft-7 in HO scale)
Thanks for the info. I have enough linear feet and I have two feet around the walls. I think I can handle 6 feet radius if I fill in the middle of the curves. I wanted to have broad curves anyway. Thanks again.
Folks don’t often realize how cramped typical madel RR curves are. In real life a 10 degree curve is fairly sharp at 573 foot radius which scales out in HO to 88 inches. The basis is the chord length of 100 feet for a one degree offset railroad curve gives my signature! 5729’ divided by the degrees of curvature. Note, please that this is not the same as the arc degrees of angle, which can be anything and with a grade such as Tehachapi Loop can be over 360 degrees.