Due to lack of space and income, my layout is fairly small and has a minimum radius of 23". I’d like to buy some passenger cars eventually, but the ones I’m interested in are 24" minimum radius.
I know if I had an 18" I wouldn’t even try, but since it’s a 23", I’m wondering how bad it would be. Anyone ever done this?
And before anyone starts criticizing me on minimum radii, it’s my layout, my money, and my rules.
If the 24" radius is limited by the trucks hitting underbody detail you sometimes can shave the center sill or remove brake detail from the trucks. Many times this is required just to get 24" radius cars to run on 24" curves. Look at the con-cor line of 60’ cars. Maybe something there you like.
Short of modifying the underbody and possibly the trucks there is not much you can do. I have at least one car that the maker states 24 in min radii, and it doesn’t like any curve - even those above 80 in. I’d strongly suggest respecting the spec provided and look for something that works at lower radii values.
Charles
Most likely you can get away with an inch. If not you can probably modify the under body, the truck or both.
If you post which car you’re looking at, someone here may have that car and be able to give you a more definitive answer.
Good luck
Paul
Paul, I’m looking at the Walthers ACF lightweights. I’m thinking about a small excursion train.
I have a few places on my layout with 23-24" radius curves, and wanted to run the 85’ streamliners (Walthers). I installed long shank #26 Kadee couplers, and they all worked just fine on those curves. Although they don’t look the best.
There were a few cars I had to dremel out the underbody, so that the truck can turn more, but that was only like 4 cars out of a total of 50 passenger cars I have.
Since then I have re-design my layout, and right now in the middle of laying new trackwork. Now my new minimum radius is 30".
As others have stated, you may need to hack out parts under the cars to get them to operate below their recommended miminum. But since you insist (yes, its your layout) on running 23 inch radius and can’t squeak out one more inch, thats what you are probably faced with. Personally I wouldn’t want do that to my cars but again, your layout your conditions and your trains which you made clear to us.
About all you can do is buy a car and test it on the curves and see how it goes. Then decide if you want to hack the underbody or sell it and go with shorty cars like those sold by Athearn and Concor.
I have some Rivarossi cars that run on 18-inch curves. By mistake, I ended up with a section of track where the radius briefly got down to 17 3/4. No dice. I had to re-lay the track.
These cars came with swing-mounted couplers. They are mounted on the body, but on a mechanism that allows the entire coupler box to move back and forth. This gives more play going around the curves and allows for operation on a tighter radius.
Like riogrande5761 mentioned, what about using the older Athearn or Concor passenger car kits? They were meant for smaller radius turns. The trade off is lesser detail (which you can add to as you see fit), slightly undersized cars (which most non-model railroaders/guests/family members wouldn’t even notice), and truck mounted couplers (which might be a good thing to help you negotiated tighter radius turns). But…they are CHEAP, fairly easy to find, look good on smaller radius turns, and you wouldn’t have to potentially hack into a more expensive passenger car kit. Good luck with the project.
Happy modeling!
Don.
Had the same issues you are having with my Walthers Superliner cars the best thing would be to see if you can buy just one car from a place that allows you to return it for a refund and then try it out on yourself. If it works… great! If not take it back OR If you could replace the couplers with long shank or modify the undedbody which may or may not be a big deal to you that may work as well. Walthers cars though in general from my experience like big radius curves than some of the others such as Athearn, Kato, Rivarossi and derail often with tighter curves. Best of Luck Reggie
Extended length couplers can help as far as when the cars might make contact on corners. The other suggestions above are valid. Athearn blue box passenger cars would work many times on those smaller radii as would rivarossi and IHC. In those cases the trucks had couplers mounted on themselves allowing for tighter curves. However, be aware that they don’t like to be backed and need to be weighted quite a bit to avoid derailing.
As you say, it’s your RR and so you can try anything you want.
Richard
I have about seven Athearn Blue Box Standard passenger cars that work just fine on my 22 inch radius curves. They are weighted as designed, probably could be heavier; but, work the way they are. Yes, they have talgo trucks (couplers attached to the trucks). This is again a fact that I’ve never felt the need to change.
What I’m saying is, I think that any passenger car can be made to work on smaller radius track, by cutting away interference with the truck’s ability to swing from side to side. I also agree that they won’t necessarily look right on tight radius curves; but, agree with you that it is your railroad and whatever you want to do is your decision to make!
Minimizing curves will have very adverse results, the cars will seem to stick far out over curves, this sight is the first thing people notice on passenger layouts and the turning between cars is very noticible, real cars could never come close to these odd looking turns. Your layout seems to facilitate extreme curves so you have no choice, but be ready for some very unprototypical train turning.
Hi, Yup, its your layout, money, and rules - and that’s the way it should be.
My suggestion comes from having been there, done that. Pick up some of the Athearn bluebox passenger cars at a show or Ebay. They are “shorties” for the most part, but fixed up they make really nice consists and will handle 22/23 inch radius with ease, and not look horrible in the process.
The full size cars have underpinnings and obstacles that make even 25 inch near impossible. My current layout has one 26 inch curve and I had to doctor up two walthers passenger cars to work there.
I also have a long consist of Athearn standard ATSF passenger cars - with KDs and diaghprams and metal wheelsets, decals, and they look really nice to me.
Eagle, I would definitely concur with the suggestions to get Athearn or Con-Cor cars. The Athearn streamlined cars (fluted sides) have been called the best-tracking cars on the market. They tend to run to 72’ cars, but believe me, nobody will notice the missing few feet, and they will handle 23-inch curves effortlessly. I have a 7-car train of the streamlined cars, and they can be backed through a #6 crossover at speed without derailing. You can get the BB cars on eBay for a pittance. Besides, they are a whole bunch cheaper than the ones from Walthers, BLI, Rapido, etc.!
Keep in mind that even if a car or engine rated for 24" minimum can in fact run on 23" (and most minimum radius ratings are recommendations) that might mean only that the car or engine can run by itself. Can a string of such cars behind a locomotive track the curve? That is the real question. Indeed even some rated minimum radii are in fact too small because they only account for the piece of rolling stock in isolation, not in actual practical railroading in miniature.
But let’s assume that is not the case here and that in fact 24" is the real practical minimum radius. If it is possible to introduce even a fairly modest easement (transition) curve where the tangent meets the curve, it may be possible for you to run this rolling stock. In his book Track Planning for Realistic Operation, John Armstrong reported on tests he performed with actual equipment and actual test track – and rolling stock rated at a certain minimum radius could actually track on a smaller radius curve – sometimes surprisingly smaller – provided there was a transition curve.
The reason is that a perfect tangent meeting a fixed radius curve (the most obvious example being a piece of Lionel straight track meeting a piece of 0-27 curve) creates the most difficulties at that very point where the two meet. Armstrong refers to the “co-efficient of lurch” in his analysis which is very interesting.
Now that means as a practical matter that the tangent would be moved out further from the radius point and that may be inconsistent with just why 23" is your minimum. But it could be that a transition curve to even a 22" or 21.5" radius curve would handle cars that would balk at a pure 23" radius meeting a tangent without a transition curve. At least that is what Armstrong’s researches suggest.
Ideally you could find someone who owns those cars and would be w
Welcome to the world of re-engineering!. My layout is a mythical/might-have-been short line, where 18" curves are not uncommon.I was given several extended deep well flat cars as a last gift by my father, before we lost him to a combination of stokes+ medical complications. Absolutely those flat cars are slowly being modified until they will run. Changes to the under carriages, coupler boxes, car weights, etc.have been necessary. To prevent derailing on a critical curve that leads into a long tunnel, I built a curved rerailer that catches wayward trucks and guides them back onto the rails. It just took a bit of figuring and laminating some .40 plastic sheeting that was cut and filed to fit. Trimming three ties in the right spot allowed a score plastic ramp to guide trucks that get pulled over the rails to find their way back to proper positions. I hid the ramp beneath a bed of gravel and ballast.
Don H.