It has probobly been asked recently and I forgot but what is the tightest radius an HO trolly can run on? And which brand will run on the tightest radius?
9" is pushing it. 12" is the norm. Can’t answer your other questions.
OK cool, this will work out perfectly. [:-,][:-,]
heres some comments about radius…do yer math…
Roy Benedict comments: Oh no, the “L” curves are not as sharp as with traditional streetcars. Not with coupled trains of flat-end cars!
: Sharpest curves on “L”: 90 ft. radius
: Recent loops in yards, etc.: 100 ft. and greater.
: Design for many new light rail cars: 82 ft. (translation of 25 meters)
: Traditional streetcar corners: Common from about 35 ft. to 50 ft., sharper in some cities
Hey don’t go much tighter than the twelve inch. Commersially the bowser trolly’s run the best but keep them out of curves tighter than twelve.Sinble trucked cars ie Tyco’s old brill or the currant IHC brill may take a nine inch but that would be pushing it,your trackwork needs to be perfect. Hope this helps. Rob
I suppose it depends on what trolley you are running! My single-truck Ken Kidder Birneys have no problem negotiating a 5-6" radius curve, and the Bachmann Brill can pull a 6" curve with a little modification–cut out the Lucite “light pipe” (replace with a bidirectional lighting system) and widen the ends of the power truck’s opening a bit to allow for more play.
Richard Orr single-point trolley turnouts are about 6" in radius. The fine-scale Proto:87 trolley track being made is bent for 8" radius. With this in mind, why should a trolley modeler limit himself to 12" in HO? Maybe if you’re running interurban equipment, or if you want to run 40-50 foot boxcars over your interurban line like I do, but if you’re running Brills or other small city streetcars then 6-8" is just fine.
Tyco made track for its trolley car that had a 4 or 5 inch radius. (I have some downstirs that I can measure more accurately.) I paced off some TTC curves a few years ago and they were about 50-60 feet from the points to the other track.
That’s right, that Tyco trolley track! It was intended for use with a single-truck Birney with small-diameter wheels (26" or 30")–supposedly the later version that used what was essentially a Hustler mechanism didn’t do so whell on the Tyco tracks’ curves because of the larger wheel radius.