Newbie model railroader over here in need of some advice. I built a table that I plan to use to set up my railroad, its dimensions are 2x4ft. I also purchased a Kato M1 track set. The issue I am noticing is that upon attaching the track together the curved section is too large and is going off of my table. I’m not sure how to address this issue. As seen in the photo below the track is about to go off my table if I were to continue…
I’m new to this too… but this is what I found. The M1 set instructions indicate that the “radius” of the curves is 12 3/8"… which means that the curved tracks will create a 180 deg. arc with a “diameter” of 24 3/4". What I’m not sure of is whether that dimension is the outer diameter of the arc, or if that is an ‘on center’ dimension. If it’s ‘on center’ then the outer diameter will be even larger by half of the width of the Unitrack on each side of the arc (or one ‘width’ of the Unitrack overall). I think the width of the N-guage Unitrack is 1"… so if the 12 3/8" dimenstion is ‘on center’ the overall diameter of the 180 deg. arc, from edge to edge, is going to be 25 3/4".
You need a bigger table. The M1 track set has 12 3/8 radius curves. A half circle needs at least 24 3/4 inches. At a minimum I would say your table needs to be at least 27 inches wide.
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