N scale Bombardier Cars

I have some 9" radius curves in my yard area and they do stay on the tracks there. But they look AWFUL on those curves.

The mainline is mostly 15" radius and they look better there.

Athearn did engineer them well, the gap between cars allows for the tighter radius turning -- unlike the HO counterparts which need a minimum of 24" to stay on the tracks (22" works but the trackwork better be good!)

Thanks Steve, That's good news as I was hoping they would go around a 15" or 16" radius. I've heard that the HO versions have a recommended 26". On my HO layout 26" was the planned minimum but I had to take it down to 24" in several spots to make things work. I model 1920's steam but I would like to have a few modern trains that are like the ones we see often. TRE commuters, DART transit, and maybe a UP or BNSF freight. N scale would be great for this and I would only have the space to build a small layout that could be stored under my sons bed. Since he saw the HO TRE locomotives and car sets at the Plano show last month he has talked about the TRE trains as much as Thomas so I'd like to start with that. Thanks again. Bruce

Glad to be of assistance.

I think you will find that the N-scale Athearn Bombardier cars run much better than their HO scale counterparts, even if they do have the "Olympic-size" gap between coupled cars. They work well even when the loco is pushing the train, in a five-car set.

Only thing is, they do tend to be a tad noisy with the metal wheels and plastic shells which are basically empty (yes, there is a simulated interior in there, but there's a lot of open space, too.)