Hi , I have another question to ask . I’ m a fan of passenger trains and I would love to have a few running on my layout . What are the best cars to use on a small layout with tight curves ??
Passenger cars, being long, really don’t look well on 18" radius curves. You could model an excursion of a 19th century passenger train.
Short passenger cars. Up to about 60’ for 18". See this page for the NMRA recommendations. http://www.nmra.org/standards/rp-11.html
The real problem is that the only shorter passenger cars tend to be wild west types. MDC had some 60’ Harriman cars from MDC that might still be available at train shows.
Smaller railroads used open platform cars into the 50’s.
Labelle has some wooden kits http://www.labellemodels.com/ that are suitable and date from the ealry 1900’s.
Enjoy
Paul
Wellllllllllllll…if you’re not terribly concerned about being prototypically correct with the particular RR you are modeling, then 60 foot heavywieght Walthers Trainline cars should look good…even on 18 inch radius curves.
Another option is to switch the 6 wheel trucks with smaller 4 wheel pullman or commonwealth trucks… but the longer 75 to 85 standard length cars will still really hang over the tight curves. That ‘overhang’ is what a lot of modelers find objectionable.
HTH
Happy Railroading!
Mark
You could use IHC 85’ cars. These will round an 18" curve.
You will have to modify them slightly to get them to roll decently though.
OR
You could try Athearn’s 72’ passenger cars.
Again, no problem with 18" curves & you shouldn’t have to modify them out of the box.
Gordon
You might want to look at the passenger cars made by Roundhouse (MDC).
However, with the company having been recently sold, availablity is unknown.
Have fun
MDC had several short cars that were pretty close to scale The styles were Overton, Pullman, and Harriman. MDC is now part of Horizon Hobbies which is trying to do mulitple things at once. Conflicting rumors are MDC passenger cars are no more and passenger cars a returning. Best source for now is probably hobby shops and train shows. There are several companies making detail bits if you want to add detail. A few names are Palace Cars, Red Cap, Train Station, Grandt, and Precision Scale Casting.
Show Me lines of Grandview, MO is an excellent hobby shop and they do quite a bit of mail order. I purchased a set of MDC passenger cars (Overton) from them and that part of the layout has 18" curves and they look fine. A little weathering and, woo-hooo, you’re in business.
I use walthers Amfleet coaches on 18 inch rad curves, they overhang, sure, but i dont mind
Just make sure ther isn’t a grade at the end of the curve-dont wanna go there…
Siddharth