I may be able to get a Spectrum Shay, but I’m not sure it’ll handle one particular tight radius on my layout. Does anyone know the minimum radius? I had a Westside model years ago that was surprisingly limited in it’s minimum radius.
Many Thanks,
smyers
I’ve ran mine around 18" radius on a 6% grade without incident. My guess is it will take 15" radius, but I haven’t tested this.
Pretty sweet model, too. I’m toying with converting one to a 4-truck version (larger water tender w/2 powered trucks). Won’t happen for awhile though.
If you have other locomotives that handle that curve, I’m pretty certain the shay can. If you are worried about it, get the climax.
It is rated for 18" min. It will go tighter one way than the other. One way if too tight, the driveshaft become disconnected, the other way there is not enough space for them to overlap.
My brass shay does 15. My spectrum heisler does 15.
I can’t answer the question as I don’t have any tight curves on my layout. But one thing I will say is that the Bachmann shay is a sweet little loco. Totally changed my opinion of Bachmann.
Mine does 15" radius curves, no problem. Takes a little more throttle to keep it moving, but no tracking problems at all.
It probably takes a little more throttle, because, from information that I saw about Shay locomotives, was that they had a top speed of about 10 mph…
Yes, the Shay is slow because of the gear drive, but the 15 inch curves slow it and most of the other locomotives down considerably. Pushing or pulling a string of cars through there takes as much throttle as as a high speed mainline run in some cases. You can’t feel the effect rolling a car through by hand, but the locomotives sure can.