Among a set of rolling stock I just received are several very nice 74’ centerbeams. They’re perfect for the Maine based layout I’m scheming up but they’re longer than anything else I’m planning to run. Does anyone have experience with these cars and have a sense of what a safe minimum operating radius for them might be? Curves will be built with easements. It would not hurt my feelings to have a rule that engines cannot couple directly to the centerbeams - in fact there was a rule about engines coupling to long cars in the Maine Central timetable.
I only have one center beam car. It is a microtrains model. The minimum radius on my layout is 15". Minimum switches are # 4 and they negotiate them in either pulling or backing moves. since it has truck mounted couplers it will couple on curves. I usually run it with several MT bulkhead flats.
As far as “a rule that engines cannot couple directly to the centerbeams” sorry,I see centerbeams coupled to locomotives a lot and like the prototype I have done it with no ill effects.
Thanks for the input so far guys. I’m planning on using 14" minimums, except on some industrial trackage where these cars won’t run anyway, so it looks like I’m ok so far.
I wasn’t clear about what I meant about not coupling to engines - I’ll happily couple to engines if I can, but if I found that the body mounted couplers on the engines didn’t provide enough swing to negotiate 14" curves when coupled to the centerbeams, I could live with a rule that states an idler must be placed between them. I will have a similar rule at one of my mills - engines cannot cross an old bridge into one of the buildings and must use idlers to reach in.
As far as the prototype goes, the Maine Central employee timetable from which I am working had a provision that 80’ cars (admittedly 6’ longer than we’re talking here) may be hauled anywhere on a train operating in the territories covered by the timetable, provided that they must be made up within a certain number of cars from the rear. There are also rules about pushers, which must be placed ahead of the long cars if the long cars are directly in front of the caboose. I think this is about braking force, primarily. The railroad didn’t want too much train behind the long cars to avoid jacking them off the track in curves - I don’t know this but I can’t think of any other reason.