What can I run on 36" radius curves? All my locos are MTH. How long of a car will work. I'm cramed for space on part of my layout.
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40' cars will run just fine.
Steam or diseasels? Most, if not all, 4-wheel trucks should also be fine.
One of the MTH experts will have to answer on specific locos.
Originally Posted by Mike-KCS:
What can I run on 36" radius curves? All my locos are MTH. How long of a car will work. I'm cramed for space on part of my layout.
Successfully I've run the following:
MTH: UP Bigboy
MTH: N&W Class A
MTH: All 4 and 6 axle diesels
Any car up to 89' in length
Unsuccessful:
MTH: Erie Decapod
MTH: UP 9000
MTH: PRR T1
MTH: PRR K4
Mike
Little surprised about that MTH K4. I have no problem with a Sunset K4, nor an MTH Consolidation, or L1
K4 did not have enough driver side play.
Originally Posted by pitogo:
Any car up to 89' in length
How much center overhang on an 89' car?
Oops. All of it. The whole car would overhang almost.
body hangs over the inside rail.
Originally Posted by mwb:
How much center overhang on an 89' car?
Originally Posted by pitogo:
body hangs over the inside rail.
Originally Posted by mwb:
How much center overhang on an 89' car?
Lovely, just lovely, 
That's fantastic...
And funny...LOL...
And funny...LOL...Originally Posted by pitogo:
body hangs over the inside rail.
Originally Posted by mwb:
Lovely, just lovely,
Just as lovely as the boiler swing on the A and bigboy . Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my job is not to judge but provide facts.
Originally Posted by pitogo:
Originally Posted by mwb:
Lovely, just lovely,
Just as lovely as the boiler swing on the A and bigboy . Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, my job is not to judge but provide facts.
Who's judging? And, this is a job? You get paid to post facts?
To think it all used to just be fun........childhood's end.
One should define their individual goals for their railroad before deciding an appropriate curve radius since simply fitting larger equipment on a tight radius curve can be physically possible, but aesthetically horrible.
As I read all the comments above, the question popped into my head: I wonder if the HO crowd has these kind of issues? (On a smaller scale, of course!)
Simon
Mike Pitogo should get paid twice as much for all this grief. At any rate, I can confirm the MTH A gets around 36", even 34" in storage on my layout. If the curves can be hidden, nobody knows any better.
Picturing the 89' car put a pretty big smile on my face. 4 cars, circle gets a square.
Thanks everyone, great info. I don't have any 36" 2-rail so I could not try it. I'm going to buy some and just need to fit in a quarter turn, figured I would ask the pros before I spent my money. I do have a 89' car, I will see how that works.
Thanks again
Here is my response to an earlier thread regarding Lionels new scale autorack.
I took some photos of an OMI 89' autorack on O72 and O120 curves and jotted down a few measurements. The OMI rack measures 22.25 at the car ends. Looks like the Lionel rack will be somewhere close in length at 24" measured across the couplers. I also took some measurements with an Atlas 89' flat that measured 22.25 at the car ends.
The overhang at the car ends for the OMI rack =2.375 on O72
The overhang at the car ends for the Atlas flat =1.875 on O72
I noticed that the trucks on the OMI rack are centered at 3.25" from the car ends whereas the trucks on the Atlas flat are centered at 2.875 from the car ends. The truck spacing from the car ends will definitely affect overhang at the car ends and the overhang at the center of the car lengthwise. I don't know where Lionel will place it's trucks, but the overhang shouldn't be too much more or less than either of these two cars. Here are a few pics.
First pic is OMI rack on O72 then O120 curves
OMI rack overhang at car center on O72 then O120 curves
Atlas flat and OMI rack coupled on O72 curves. The Atlas flat has more car center overhang due to the wheels being placed closer to the car ends.
As you can see, there is plenty overhang on the smaller curves. Running the 89 footers on 36"radius is possible, but they probably would have to be coupled to cars of similar length and probably nothing shorter than 60'. You wouldn't have to worry about weeds overtaking the tracks with cars of this length and 36" radius, that overhang would cut down some weeds (LOL).
Travis
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Thanks for the pictures Travis, that shows things very well.
Yeah, would definitely want to watch out for trackside structures, vehicles @ road crossings, etc... that might be in the inside middle of such a curve!
Originally Posted by superpower:
As you can see, there is plenty overhang on the smaller curves. Running the 89 footers on 36"radius is possible, but they probably would have to be coupled to cars of similar length and probably nothing shorter than 60'. You wouldn't have to worry about weeds overtaking the tracks with cars of this length and 36" radius, that overhang would cut down some weeds (LOL).
Travis
