Turnout/radius opinions

What length car is this? I'm aware that long - like 80' - cars are a potential problem and don't plan to go there.

You're making the right decisions for yourself. I'd more go with small equipment and do something in hte '50s for a timeframe which means F7 and GP9 type locos and 40 and 50 foot cars. Then again, you can do an 1890 type layout with the littler Moguls and Consolidations for motive power. Cars will be in the 36-40 foot size which won't look too bad on the smaller curves.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

Those are 80 footers, aren't they?

I've heard that there is some prototype for 60 shorty cars, and also that some model manufacturers have made 70 foot cars (don't know if there's a prototype for that or not. I wouldn't mind 60 foot heavyweight cars, prototypical or not. Know any sources?

60' is commuter stock. Right for branchlines, not right for mainline. The standard for PRR is the P70. These heavyweight pullmans are REALLY nice. I am going to modify the layout just for 5 of these behind a GG1.

Jim Stewart

Just what I intend.

The quest for short but realistic looking varnish. I too have looked for passenger cars that look right but are shorter than 80 foot so they don't look so foolish on 18 inch curves. I have tried the IHC 80 foot streamliners. They stay on the track and look pretty good on the straights. Refitted with body mount couplers, and weighted to NRMA reccomendations, they will back up but you want to take it very easy lest they derail. Then there are the Athearn cars. They are 70 foot long. They are probably 80 foot prototypes but selectively compressed. They look pretty good. Model power makes old time 48 foot open vestibule wood cars which would look just right behind a 19th century 4-4-0. They would make reasonable commuter cars up thru the 1950's. Very satisfying are the old Ambroid 65 foot wooden coach kits. The kit is a tough build, but done right the car is very nice. The kits have been out of production for a long time but they still turn up at train shows. I have one built and a couple of kits yet to build. The prototype is a B&M wood coach that was in Boston commuter service as late as 1957. Three of them behind a 2-6-0 would make a very plausible commuter train.

David Starr

Walthers is offering 60-footers, based on actual prototypes. Eg, CP had

60ft baggage cars and combines; I have pics from the 1960s in Edmonton, Alberta. Yosemite Valley had a 4o foot baggage/express/RPO combine. I don't know its history, but it looks like a shortened Harriman car.

HTH&GL

On Sun, 12 Dec 2004 03:59:48 UTC, "Jim Stewart" wrote: 2000

Espee's early steel coaches were 60 footers, mainline stock. They ran into the mid '50s.

The 60' dimension was over the sills. They were just under 68' over the diaphragms.

Sharp radius curves are an inevitable result of the limited space most modelers face; the rule of thumb I'd use is to set your minimum radius based on the equipment and available space, then select a turnout that has a "closure rail" radius that is equal or just above the minimum radius you have selected. The "closure rail" radius is the tightest part of the curve through the turnout.

Here is a list of closure rail radii:

- 15" #5 - 26" #6 - 43" #7 - 49"

For 22" radius curves, #5 turnouts are a good match.

In locations where the diverging points of turnouts are back-to-back (such as in crossovers), use a turnout at least one size larger (or two, if space allows), to reduce problems with reverse curve effects when equipment passes through the crossover.

I disagree with above because it the sharp #4 that limits what can be run. An extra 50mm per turnout is only going to shorten train lengths by about 1 carriage on small layouts. The larger the radius, the more equipment will work without trouble. Use #6 or larger and you will have minimal problems pushing or pulling trains. Go smaller and reliability decreases considerably. If you have space for the table top size layout, then you have space to build a round the wall layout, (You should have space for a 12'x 9' around walls in your example) then you get enough space to have large curves 3' and reliable running. Odds are you will make mistakes on your first layout, and will build a second one to apply what you have learnt. By using large radius turnouts for your first layout, you can recycle them for your future layouts, knowing thy will not place restrictions on what can be run.

Err Terry, you're mixing US and UK concepts!

US turnouts don't have a radius throughout, just an initial bend before a straight through the frog. Some/most European turnouts from the last century have a constant(ish) radius through the entire curved leg of the turnout, hence Peco and the like refering to turnouts having a specific radius.to cause derailments A constant radius is less likely to cause derailments than is a sudden change of angle. The partial leveller is in a short cross-over, where the opposing angular pull between two items of rolling stock is much the same whether US or European turnouts are used.

Regards, Greg.P.

A few disclaimers: At the moment, I only have a layout in progress, no benchwork, only a few modules that will eventually become part of it.

I have no plans to use any diesels, and only one Climax, the rest will be smaller rod locos.

A 40 foot car is about the biggest that I'll be using.

From past attempts, which were torn down because I didn't like the way they looked, in regards to turnouts,

It isn't the turnout so much that limits what can be run, an old AHM Big Boy can navigate an 18" turnout nicely. The same can not be said for all cars though. Cheaper cars, with cheaper trucks will have problems staying on the rails on a straight run. What I found was that lead sheet and lead wire were my best friends.

Granted, this will limit what can be pulled, in terms of train length, but in my case, this isn't a factor, ten cars will be just about the limit of what I want to pull. Putting high quality trucks under the longer cars, in my case, the MOW cars, and weighting them eliminated most of the problems in navigating the small radius turnouts.

The train speed when approaching a turnout is also a factor, going too fast through a turnout will cause some models to become airborne, but slowing to something resembling a scale speed usually doesn't, it just causes other problems with shorter locos. None of which are uncurable, you just have to look at one problem at a time, fix that and go on to the next one. A complete layout is a pretty complex entity, and instead of trying to look at it as one entity, look at it as a combination of small entities that have to be looked at one at a time. It's like building a very complex kit, there may be hundreds of parts, but you can only work on one at a time. Finish that one part then look at the next.

Greybeard.