For the RDC, could depend on who made it. The old Life-Like/Proto RDC and the newer Rapido ones are full (85’) length. The old Athearn ones are shortened to about 65-70’. The Athearn ones can go around 18" and perhaps even 15" curves, I think the full-size ones may need 22"R or larger.
I just read a review of the Rapido RDC - it’s minimum radius is 18" and the reviewer successfully ran it around an 18" radius curve.
However, best practice is to run any rolling stock on a curve radius above the minimum, whatever one can afford to increase it to.
For everyone’s information, I just set up an HO 15" curve and ran my Bachmann 3 truck Shay through it. Even at slow speed she bucked off the rail coming out of it. Just sitting there with no power the tender and loco touch, but there is a little play, so I thought I got lucky. Running, whole 'nother story. I’ll try 16". BTW the axles never popped out. (UPDATE 7/4: I ran the 3 truck Shay through the 15" curve again with my glasses on, certain all wheels were aligned first. It would not derail even at top speed. Can’t say what happened but I’m adding Shay to the 15 club!)
Then I had success, no derails on the HO 15" curve with these:
Bachmann 10 wheeler Baldwin.
Proto 2000 SW8
Proto 2000 FA1-FB1, hitched.
Hope this helps! -Rob
Simon,
I’m assuming the inches in your car lengths above should be feet?
Tom
Oh, yes, good catch. Fixed.
Wayne, I just read your post, 7 posts back. Impressive. I liked what I seen. Patience is a virtue as I always say.
I was at the drawing board a very long time before I made my layout written in stone. I don’t know, I think I may think along the same guidelines as you do.
I had my minimum radius at 17 inches in N scale and was pretty content to proceed. For some reason I didn’t. About a month later I redid the whole one-to-one scale layout drawing over again for about the seventh, eighth time.
It was after I looked at a Great Northern 83 foot passenger car on that 17 inch radius… Don’t get me wrong, it looked pretty good but I thought it would look even better on an 18 inch radius.
I reconfigured the whole layout putting a minimum 18 inch radius that was viewable and put a 16 inch radius hidden to achieve it. That took some amount of time, my wife thought I was crazy.
I was finally happy with what I had and made it so, taking it from a two-dimensional drawing to a three-dimensional reality.
Now I have to extend the length of my layout 6 inches to accommodate (only cosmetically) the three tier custom truss bridge I built. That Bridge took over 90 hours to build. It’s a good thing I’ve been patient and haven’t laid my track yet. Things look a little to cramped for my liking down there. I do believe my layout will finally be written in stone soon[bow]
TF
If we all only had just a little more room[:|]
Min radius is really set by a couple factors, how much room you have for said radius and what type of motive power do you which to run. Most larger steam and 6 axle diesels are not happy below 22" radius curves, not to mention they look silly on those curves. But for many, me included, 22" is the largest curve I can fit in my allowed space. So when that is the case, then you have to comprimise sometimes on what motive power/rolling stock one chooses. I model the Susquehanna Railroad in the late 1980’s, so 4 axle motive power is the norm with the big GE Dash 8-40B’s being the new “big” power of the day. I run Overland Models brass diesels, and have both a 8-40B and an Alco C430. I have found that both will happily run on as little as a 15" radius curve! Not going to tell you how absurd it looks but just goes to show that even finicky brass can many times go thru very tight curves. And this was pulling a train, not just light power. I always tell folks to use the largest radius/diameter curves you can, the trains will run and look better. Mike the Aspie
[:^)]I had a discussion with my LHS in Columbia a whle back and we discussed this very topic. My layout is 10 by 12 feet, around the room. Passenger trains are my passion although I do run freight. In fact I enjoy just watching a four car consists running around the layout at a leisurly pace, no time schedules just run trains.
Also, I like my diaphragms almost touching for added realism. My coaches are, Rapido, Broadway Limited, and MTH, all long coaches. My brass coaches are also scale and long with soft rubber bellows type diaphragms that are almost touching.
I was advised that I would need at least a 28 inch radius for 84 foot passenger cars with those type of diaphragms. Anything less than that I would see binding and derailments. My curves are between 28 and 30 inch radia and even with the close diaphragms the coaches do fine and look good.
Robert Sylvester
Newberry-Columbia Line, SC