Some of you have read my post on loosing my layout to a roof falling in on my layout. Post title=(Do I start over or rebuild?)
Today I received a coach car in the mail from an eBay auction win and to my surprise the coach car was almost as long as two standard HO scale cars and this had me wondering if I had finished my 1st layout would this length of car have taken the some what tight turns that were already a big part of my layout???
I put together the 6 curves that make up a turn and to my amazement the long car (army troop carrier) barely made the turns and it looked strange and unnatural when it did so, it hung over the track in a strange way around the turn.
So although I had my layout destroyed It was a blessing in disguise, had I finished the whole layout with the turns that I was using I never would have been able to pull the long cars.
The detail on the troop carrier car is wonderful and I would have hated the fact that I couldn’t have used this car or others like it, I would have been unhappy with my layout.
Now it also brought me to wonder how much clearance will I need between the track and my scenery in the turns, I don’t want my cars crashing into my scenery on the turns, how does one figure out how far away to have scenery from the track bed on turns?
Now my confusion on the subject is this, are there many different types of curves that make up wider turns, is it the amount of bend in them or the length of them?
I think it is the degree of bend myself because if I add to many curves with the tracks I have now all that does is create a curve that is just tighter and starts forming a circle and not a turn…
I know this sounds confusing but I’m wondering if I was supposed to use a mix of straight tracks with the curves to make a wider sweeping turn?
What am I missing here. Remember, I’m new at this and am feeling my way around in the dark and what should seem like something simple is driving me nut
It is related to the degree of curvature, which is analogous to the radius of the curve. If you tie a nail at the end of a length of string, drive the nail into a surface so that it is fixed, and then pinch the string out a ways with a pencil in your hand, you can draw curves of many different radii. They will all be concentric if you keep the nail in the same spot. If you lay sections of flextrack along those drawn centrelines, you will quickly find out which curve radii are best suited to both your new car and the space you have in which to generate those curves.
Of course, it gets a bit more complicated. You can build what are called easements into the curves. Generally, it means the straight (tangent) tracks begin to bend slowly and then the curvature tightens until you are following a proper curve for the path intended. This way, the contents of cars (passengers and fragile items) don’t get jostled harshly when the car enters a curve immediately. Instead, there is a gentler acceleration into the change of direction.
I’ve posted this elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating here: one of the all-around best guides I’ve seen online to minimum radius in any scale is the Layout Design Special Interest Group’s Curve Radius Rule-of-Thumb.
For example, a GP9 is about 57 feet long, which is about 7.7" in HO.
The curve radius rule of thumb says you can get away with about 3 times the length of the equipment for good tracking, 4 times will look better, but 5x is best if you want reliable coupling. For a GP9, this means:
3x = 24" good tracking
4x = 30" will look better
5x = 38" will give reliable coupling
Now you can often cheat and push to perhaps 2.5x with model loco tracking reliability, which would be just over 18" in HO. But don’t expect to go much less.
You can also cheat with the 4x “looks better” number, and drop to 3.5x if you are looking at the curve from the inside instead of from the outside. Curves viewed from the inside don’t look as sharp, and the equipment looks a little better.
As to reliable coupling, anything under about 5x means you can’t expect the couplers to align themselves all the time – you may have to manually push the couplers into alignment to couple. Not the end of the world, but it’s nice to be aware of this limitation when designing a layout. In the case of the 38" for a GP9, I think cheating just a little and dropping to 36" minimum radius would probably be okay.
The point is, these rule-of-thumb guidelines get you pretty close for layout designing. If you want to “cheat” on these figures, you should do some additional testing yourself with the specific equipment you have in mind to see what really will work for you.
Well when I first read about your disaster I felt for you as things of this nature can be at the very least disheartening. Then I thought I’d gladly switch with you as my layout is at a junction.I too am having problems with tight radius as the Rapido Cars I have bought look horrid on tight turns and am looking for an excuse to trash and rebuild. Some of the guys responded to my post today on “What am I to do” with the current problem and the bitter sweet truth is to rebuild. Unfortunately I think this is not an option at this point of my life so I will probably have to “adjust” just a few the problems. Anyway Spring is on the way and the garden will spring forth and grow. So hopefully we have seen the last of Winter’s mark for another year. Hopefully this will get me back on track.
At the end of the day, you’ll find out why most of us on our second or third try end up with flex track. In general, the bigger the radius, the better the look. Those long cars do in fact look funny hung way over the inside of the curve.
Before you commit to starting over, take some time and look at a couple of planning books especially those by John Armstrong and get an idea what you want to model and can fit into the room you have available. I started off with 18 and 24 inch radius sectional track when I got back into this but tore up what I’d started and went with flex track and lots less complication but more realism. It’s easy to make a bowl of spaghetti and much harder to plan and build a realistic setup. Once you get some ideas, it’s easy to ask more questions here. Good luck. J.R.
The first thing I would suggest is to start experimenting with flex track. In the long run, this is more cost-effective, and will yield much more realistic results. It takes a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, I think you’ll agree that it gives you a lot of … well… flexibility!
As for clearances, I went out and got an 86’ auto parts high cube boxcar, probably the biggest piece of rolling stock anyone would ever use… (although some piggy back flats are 89’, but even loaded they’re not as tall as a hi-cube) and use that as a “clearance template”… If that fits, then pretty much everything else will.
It could also be helpful to research prototypical clearance standards. Perhaps someone else can direct you to an on-line resource for this, but I’ve always found that prototype information is always useful when you have a question about your model.
Sorry to hear about your incident, hope you are on your way to getting all back in order. I don’t have the room for the real standards but I know that if there are tight curves on parts of the layout it is recommended that you try to hide them. N scale can be tricky just as HO.
Both, the less the amount of bend the turn the more length it takes to make a circle.
Sounds like you are using sectional track. The degree of bend is fixed and cannot be changed. A circle will always be a certain number of pieces. 18" radius is the most common and it takes 3 pieces to make a 90 degree corner, 6 for a 180, and 12 pieces to make a full circle.
No, do not do this. A curve, straight, curve, straight, etc. is much worse than a nice constant curve.
Sectional track is made to make curves of specific radius. It cannot be changed to be different radius. So check what you have. Often it will be printed on the back of the track pieces. The common sizes are 15 inch, 18 inch, and 22 inch. Obviously the larger the number the wider sweeping the turn will be.