Has anyone run their Hogwarts Express on O31 track? The Lionel catalogue lists it as minimum O36 (Fastrack) but I have some O31 on my layout. I’m not sure what the limiting factor would be…would the car ends bump into each other or is the engine too long in its drive wheel portion?
Thanks for any advice you might have.
Neil
If I’m not mistaked the wheel arrangement will grind into … I call it … the track … binding … someone who owns one on here can tell you better … but that’s what I was told .
Yes.
But the locomotive will not run on O31 curves because the wheels bind against the body frame, but the passenger cars will run fine on O31.
REVIEW: Lionel’s Harry Potter Hogwarts Express by Erol Gurcan
When I first saw the current Lionel catalog and read about the features of this train set, the thing I found most odd was the minimal track radius for the train set — O36. Since the locomotive and tender are not scale in size, most would think the train should be able to negotiate O31, or even O27 curves, like the Polar Express loco and tender. For curiosity’s sake, I ran the locomotive and tender on my O31 Lionel tubular track. Sure enough, the front truck derailed several times when going around the curves. However, the passenger cars negotiated the O31 curves OK – should you decide to run them with other locomotives.
The pilot truck will start binding on the steam chest. If you look closely, the inside half of the steam chest is missing to allow the set to run on even O-36. Here are some pictures:
front shot showing loco on O-31 track, note the pilot wheels are starting to scrape the crossheads
Here is a rear shot of the steam chest, note how the flanges on the pilot are about to meet the flanges on the lead driver:
Thanks everyone for the quick response. The review info was good and the pictures were excellent. It is a shame that the engine won’t run on O31. My oldest grandson is a big Harry Potter fan and would like to run the Hogwarts Express on our layout. I suppose that one could probably be creative and modify the front wheel unit somehow to provide clearance but I’m not sure that I want to take that chance.
Neil
As Lionel has upgraded it’s starter set engines lately, do the new 0-8-0 steam engines run well, or at all on 031?? Thanks Ken