3 ft OK for HO ??

With the 15-16" curves you will need to use you will be limited to SMALL locomotives, like the Spectrum 0-6-0T and diesel switchers, and 40 ft. boxcars instead of 50 ft. Fine by me. Consider a mining or industrial theme. And forget passenger cars. As for track, I like Shinohara but a #5 turnout is probably the largest you would use on a small layout. Maybe not. Depends on how long you make the layout. Code 83 seems to be the new standard these days. Or you can make a switching layout WITHOUT curves. Up to you.

-John

An 18" radius is considered pretty tight, and even _that_ won't fit in 36" without lapping over the sides. Now, if you went with HOn3 or HOn30 (HOn2 1/2), you could fit a full reverse loop in 36" deep, but the selection of locomotives and rolling stock is more limited and a lot more scratchbuilding is required.

You could always consider a switching layout, perhaps with staging yards, an possibly transfer tables or sector plates "offstage" at the ends. How much length do you have available?

Also: remember, if the module is up against a wall on one long side, 36" is a little deep - most folks recommend a 30" maximum.

Steve Caple wrote: > An 18" radius is considered pretty tight, and even _that_ > won't fit in 36" without lapping over the sides.

If a continuous run is desired, a folding flap could be attached to the front of the baseboard at each end to give the extra width for 36" curves. It only needs to be a few inches wide and is only lowered when the layout is in operation.

Cheers David

Cute little railroads have been built in coffee tables so 3' is easily done if you accept the small radius curves. I'll also note that there are some really small layouts that have been done, usually circles going around something like a mountain or so forth as a lark. Saw one on the web a year or so ago that was really cute.

-- Bob May Losing weight is easy! If you ever want to lose weight, eat and drink less. Works evevery time it is tried!

If that " 3 feet wide" is tucked into a corner with an L-shaped or around-the-walls layout, You can go upward of 34" radius instead of diameter. In other words, you could run anything you please.

If you're a beginner, Atlas make good nickel-silver track in 3-foot sections. Code 100 (.100 high; corresponds roughly to 155 lb./yard rail) has black ties and is slightly cheaper. Code 83 (0.083" high; 135 lb./yard rail) has brown ties.

Other mfrs. make track that is more expensive but has the attraction of looking better. Micro-Engineering comes to mind immediately.

Whatever you do, get nickel-silver and not brass or steel track. Steel rusts and brass oxides don't conduct electricity.

3 feet wide for a table layout doesn't make it. 4 feet works a lot better. It's still tight, but at least you can double-track around the turns (18" and 22" radii).

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

You could, of course, consider HOn30 see

for some details.

Or see

for some pics of my HOn30 Bigg & Orsum Railroad. The whole thing is 1220mm x 600mm, roughly 4' x

2'.

Jeff Law New Zealand

For HO an 18" radius curve will run just about everything, abet with some overhang on the corners. So a 180 degree curve( enough to turn the train around and head it back, is in principle only 36" wide. The "18 inch" is actually measured to the center of the track, so a real full reversing curve would be a couple of inches more, say 38" to the edge of the tie strip. Was it me, I'd insist on keeping the 18" radius. Going down to 15" means a good deal of rolling stock won't get around the curve without derailment. All the makers do a lot of work to get their stuff to hack 18" curves. Even full length passenger cars and long steamers can make an 18 " curve, although the overhang makes 'em look sort of odd. For track, go with nickel silver rail. Brass needs too much cleaning and has been obsolete for 20 years. Steel and aluminum are cheapo train set stuff. Atlas has been a good name in track for 40 years. Shinohara is also good. You choices are snap track (pieces of track about 9" long, curves and straights and turnouts), flex track, (three foot lengths that can be bent to any radius), and hand laid track. Hand laying track is fun, lots of guys enjoy doing it, but it's an acquired skill. I'd pass on it for my first layout, 'cause it's tricky to do it well enough for the trains to stay on the track. Flex track is nice 'cause you can do any radius and have it meet up without kinks. It requires some care in planning and laying to get good even curves. You have to make some kind of giant compass and draw the curves full scale on the benchwork. Snap track is the easiest, the curved sections are curved at the right radius and you just fit them together. Snap track is still available with just rail and plastic ties. However various types with a molded plastic ballast strip, which looks nice, are becoming more and more common. There are several makers, and the track doesn't intermate well between the different makes. You might want to investigate the availability of the make you are thinking off. A make carried by a couple of hobby shops and WalMart is a better bet than a make only carried by one local shop. Rail size is speced by "code", which is thousandths of an inch. Code

100 rail is 100/1000's (tenth inch) high. Code 100 is common but a bit over size for HO. Lot's of folk use code 83. Actually, painting the rail rust brown does a lot the make it look smaller. Painted, code 100 lots smaller than bright shiny code 83. Everything ever made runs well on code 100. A few European imports (Thomas the Tank Engine) and perhaps some IHC steamers, will derail on code 83 'cause the wheel flanges start hitting the rail spikes. Most rolling stock comes thru with RP-25 wheels that will run on code 83. The few older models or European built stuff can often be reequipped with RP-25 wheels which run fine. Locomotives afflicted with deep flanges are fixable, but it's harder to do. Was it me, I'd check a couple of hobby shops and determine what is more widely available and offers the wider choice of radii, length and turnout styles; code 100 or code 83, and go with the most available size.

David J. Starr

Tom Line wrote:

Ladies and gentlemen, Ah ha ha ha! Step right up to my side show. When I put the new PM-1 in my Mantua 0-4-0T 'Grumbles', I decided I needed somewhere to run it in, BUT my railroad is only 20 feet of track with a runaround at one end, so I took this piece of foam core board and laid flex track on it, making an oval with 9.5" radius curves (measured to the outside rail). The engine ran fine on this, so I started coupling up cars. You must keep in mind that my cars range in length from 30 to 42 feet. All was well with a five car train. I kept adding them until the engine was pulling 8 cars, with the last one about 9" from its pilot beam. Then I started getting some serious stringlining problems. Then I started trying other engines. The PM-1 donor Tyco 0-4-0 Pony (with Grumbles' old motor) ran fine. An Athearn F7 that has since been given away in another purge of powered boxcars ran in one direction, but not the other, and its U joints made a delightful gnashing and grinding when it hit the curves. A Life-Like Teakettle ran as badly as ever, but did not derail, pulling a hopper car with some nails dumped in it. My Roundhouse 2-6-0 just barely dragged itself through the curves with the rearmost drivers bumping ties. I even tried elevating one end of the board to simulate a steep grade when Grumbles was running. My conclusion - you should build a test track and see what happens. Experiment is much better than secondhand knowledge. You might also use trolleys. Nine inches is not so sharp for them. Cordially yours, Gerard P.

Tom, If space is limiting you and you have your heart set on HO, consider a switching layout without loops. If you need loops, consider HOn3. Then you can still build HO sized structures and details that can later go on a larger railroad. If you have not purchased anything yet, and still want a layout with loops of track, you might be better off in N scale. I watched an N scale Bachmann 2-8-0 run in a hobby shop recently and was amazed at how slow it could go. N scale has come a long way baby! My $.02 worth. Doug

I'm surprised to hear that anything made it around a 9.5 inch radius curve.

David J. Starr

Cream City Traction has a 7" radius test track, as that is the minimum radius on one of the corner modules. Stock Botchmann trolleys make it around.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Dear Mr. Starr, You are perhaps no relation to galactic hero Lucky Starr? Say hello to Bigman Jones for me...anyway, I was surprised it worked myself, especially with the cars attached. Not only that, most had body-mounted couplers (Kadees) although those cars were no longer than

36' (MDC old time beer reefers). > >

I would say a standard 4X8 plywood tabletop layout is off the wall.

I should either contribute or shut up, but I'm feeling smart-alecky tonight. Must be one of those days. We all have 'em at some point.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"