the acela forum has not had postings for some years now. it still seems to be a popular train to run, and Rapido will have the Turbotrain in the stores sometime in the next year or so. do these trains actually run at the prototypical speeds(125 to 200 mph), and is anyone building layouts, with the long straits and banked curves, to run them at full speed. would be nice to see some layout photos, or a video. maybe Model Railroader could do a feature story in the magazine. mike.
I will try to find it, but I saw online a while back where there is a group with a modular layout that concentrates on NEC operations with a lot of Acela running.
Edit: The site I mentioned above appears to be gone, but I found this to be an interesting site…
http://www.prrnortheastcorridor.com/NORTHEASTCORRIDORHO2.html
I just saw that Accela club site a couple weeks ago. Don’t remember where but if I find it I’ll send you a link.
Decoderboy neglected to mention one thing to go with banked (superelevated) curves for high speed operation, that is Really Large Radius curves, which in HO would be 88 to 120 inch radius. A real railroad 10 degree curve (573’ r.) scales out in HO to 88" radius. Anyone wanting this type of layout should plan on a really big room! Enjoy! jc5729 John Colley, Port Townsend, WA
I doubt achieving proto-typical speeds will be a problem. I have to adjust the normal HO engines top speeds down to around 70 smph from, usually, well over 125 smph.
Tilden
It would be an interesting theme for a Free-Mo modular club, I would think. The Acela is double-ended, so that kind of long, stretched-out layout that Free-Mo lends itself to would be just fine - just flip the direction at the other end and accelerate back up to warp speed.
Because of my choice of prototype I have had any number of people ask why I didn’t include a Shinkansen route in my scheme. I will NOT go into the myriad of prototypically valid reasons for my negative reply - anyone who knows the chronology of the Shinkansen knows them already.
What I will mention is the radius of a prototypically accurate as of 1964 Shinkansen curve in HOj - 25 meters! Close enough to the length of a North American passenger car to make no difference.
So, selectively compress the same way I’ve selectively compressed the distances between scale kilometer posts. That brings the radius down to a mere 5 meters, so my double garage could (theoretically) handle 1/4 circle with enough left over for decent spiral easements.
Then there’s the little detail that even the Shinkansen needs space to accelerate to speed and decelerate to a stop (unless you’re planning to turn your passengers into strawberry jam…)
A modular layout the size of a basketball court MIGHT be able to run them at prototype speed. I seriously doubt it could be done realistically on anything smaller.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I posed the same question a while back about if anyone ever built a stritctly passenger only layout, which would have long straight stretches of track so trains could run fast, well, I don’t think one reply answered their layout was 100% passenger only, lots had mixed freight AND passenger, but there was not one reply as to 100% passenger traffic. I await some new answers to this forum.
60 MPH is 1 foot/second in HO.
How many seconds does it take a train to go around YOUR loop? REAL trains don’t go aroind in circles. Do they?
TWO THINGS that destroy realism and promote BORDOM are repeticious running and an engine ‘sniffing’ it’s own tail
- a problem with too small a layout, and pulling too many cars. A MILE in HO is 60.6 feet!
I might be able to run the Duplex and 12 standard heavyweights at 120 scale miles an hour. But such a train requires space, quality trackwork not availible at this time.
Believe it or not, they sometimes do.
Tokyo’s double track Yamate-sen isn’t exactly a circle - more like the cross-section of a deflated football - but the EMU trains that run on it go 'round and 'round in the same direction from first thing in the morning to some time after midnight. Of course they stop at a LOT of stations, and only a railfan would ride all the way around the loop. (Only a masochist would then ride all the way around in the opposite direction!)
My main line is a loop - over half hidden. Nothing runs around it without stopping for an extended layover, and most trains never run all the way around. Incidentally, its total length (when finished, which it isn’t yet) will be something over five scale kilometers.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)