I have a layout room in my basement which is 26 feet. long half the length of the room is 9 feet wide the other half is 11 feet. I have built three layouts trying to keep the minimum radius 30" unsuccessfully. too many duckunders. I am thinking of reducing radius to 24". I have a large collection of brass turbines. Do you think they would look good on this raduis?
what scale?
n probably yes
ho you might have problems getting them to go round the corners.
spike a loop onto a piece of plywood or whatever in both radii and try then out.
you might be better off symplifying your track plan to include fewer loops and things. try reading some of the books on layout design. less can be more!
Ho scale.
Good Idea on doing a tryout.
HO scale - no, they would not look good, and are likely to derail.
I strongly recommend that you redesign your room/layouts into one layout that is around the walls, leaving the whole middle wide open. At the doorway (hopefully only one), but in a swing bridge. You may also want to consider making it into a huge helix that winds around the room. One of Kalmbach’s recent special mags featured an N scale layout that did nine turns around a dining room, each only a few inches apart.
See also Mike Brock’s UP layout:
http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=S&cmdtext=brock%2C+mike&MAG=ANY