I had to put this temporary setup together to prove that my FEF-3 could make it around an 11" radius turn with a 3% grade. My layout requires a turn like this at each end. The piers are hand cut from foam board, so the heights are not 100% accurate, but it works!
Jonas!
It worked!! Nice long train too.
I’m glad to see that you had the good sense to check it out before building it for real.
Dave
Is Gilligan firing?
Sorry, couldn’t resist [:D]
Excellent job trying it out before being committed and finding out it doesn’t work.
–Randy
I can just hear the water sloshing out of the tender hatches while going up that grade!
I agree though, good idea to make a prototype before actually building the permanent roadbed. Watch the approaches, though. That is where many troubles surface with couplers and tracking ability.
Cheers, Ed
Thanks. I moved some of the piers one way or the other a bit to smooth a couple of bumps. My layout is basically going to be on a 24" deep shelf, 18’ long. I really needed to know that these turns would work. Otherwise I’d have a nice, useless train display.
At the high end I have one 9.75" straight track at 3% grade. Ultimately there will be another 9.75" section at 1.5% grade, and then it will level off. I still have to see if that’s a good transition, but my main concern was the turns.
I did something similar a few months ago.
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My track plan requires a 5% grade with a 22" radius curve at the top in HO scale. I built a mock up out of Kato Unitrack and tried it out.
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A Walthers Proto H-10-44 switcher will pull four cars and a caboose up that grade. Good enough for my needs. I would prefer five cars, but it slipped with that load.
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-Kevin
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[tup][tup]
But how does it handle running down the grade?
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
Here’s the freight set, running a little bit faster.