Radius

Depends on the prototype you choose. Earlier railways generally had sharper-radii curves, industrial railways (and still more narrow-gauge industrial lines) sharper curves still. I'd not be surprised if there was a prototype which would fit into your shed in 12"/1' scale..

posting.http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>

Thought I would check against a 12 chain radius (fairly typical for a fast line). Bit surprised to find that n gauge would demand 34.8 ft!

Regards

All model making is an approximation, just a matter of where you choose to draw the approximations.

2mm finescale will usually go round 3ft6in to 4ft diameter without too much effort. 4mm finescale (Scalefour) goes round in about 8ft radius pretty reliably. In both cases, short wheelbase can be a lot tighter.

( not sure what the Highway Code says about it (private Guy joke :-) ) )

- Nigel

"Just zis Guy, you know?" wrote

Just look at some of the dock-side railways. Curves were often surprising tight and in places wagons would be turned by 90º in their own length using small wagon turntables.

There are prototypes for everything if you look in the right place(s).

John.

On 03/08/2008 18:18, Nigel Cliffe said,

Don't. Just don't :-)

Next week:- judith discovers railway modelling...

On Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:03:37 +0100, Paul Boyd said in :

Please no. We'll have hundreds of posts asking us why she should read Iain Rice as he has no legal standing, or waffling on endlessly about the Bachmann Deltic never having seen either the model or the prototype.

Guy

posting.http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk>>

12 chains == 12x66 == 792ft. In British N, that's 5.2ft, in common N that's 4.95ft. would fit easily into that shed.

FWIW, the smallest radius ever used on main line in North America was at Boston Bar, in the Fraser Canyon, British Columbia. It was a 23 degree curve, which scales out to 34.6"" radius in HO, 39.5" in OO. It's long since been eased.

Trams had and have much tighter curves. A typical curve rounding a right angle intersection would scale out to around 6" to 7" in HO/OO.

HTH

Aha: an example! Heywood's 15"-gauge locomotives[1] (and all their asssociated stock, which included such exotica as a sleeping carriage and a dining car) were designed to cope with curves of 25' radius. You'd not get a continuous-run Haywood line in 12": 1' (finescale) into your shed, bit a shunting layout might be possible. In 16mm/1' a fairly ambitious layout, with completely scale curves would be practical. In O-9 you might be able to build an entire railway to scale...

[1] e.g. _River Irt_, on the Ravensglass and Eskdale: rebuilt from Heywood's 0-8-0T _Muriel_ with a more conventional boiler, but still retaining the flexible chassis.

He doesn't get the credit he deserves for this. Later, similar German articulation systems like the Klein Lindner are more generally remembered.