Any Experience Running The Following On O27 Curves?

Most of the time, it's the O27 switches that cause the problems.  The 60' coaches may look a bit funny on the O27 curves, but they should be able to handle them.  If the switches are not the Lionel ones with the big switch motor housing, it should work fine.

Thx gunrunnerjohn, the switches in the notional design are all O36 Atlas O.

I tried overlaying Gargraves O31 over a section Atlas O27 in a sample curve to see how the geometry would be affected.  Looks like it would still stretch the length of the design and exceed the 80" door length IF it were to retain the reverse leg.

Since the Atlas switches have the motor that's out of the way, hitting those isn't a problem.

Personally, I don't think you'll have a problem, but I'd wait for someone that actually has more O27 to verify.  I decommissioned my O27 layout in favor of building one that will handle more and larger equipment.

There is probably a fair amount of longer equipment you can run on o27, but the question to me is - why would you want to? 15" cars look bad on o31 with the amount of overhang. They're going to look worse on o27 and will demolish anything in the path with leading and trailing outside overhang as well as cut across on the interior.

From an appearance perspective, consider sticking with nine and ten inch long cars. It will look much better. 

Here's an apples to oranges comparison:

I just ran a pair of MPC era "baby madison" cars through my o27 tubular loop on my layout. Since they came in a set that came with o27 track, it's not surprising that they will run on it. They even barely make it through an S curve. The switches I use are K-Line with the low profile machines. I don't believe they would make it through the Lionel remote switches .

I don't have any experience with the engines you are referring to, so I can't comment on them.

I like the track plan you've come up with. It looks like you can do quite a bit in a small space.

J White

S-curves seem to be particularly troublesome for a lot of cars and locomotives, even in the diameter curve they're designed for.

I wish I could help on those particular engines but I don't have experience with those.  What I would suggest is for you to consider pulling the layout out from the wall for operating and put something down the hinge as a view block.  It will help hide the small size of the layout and give a better sense of having 2 distinct "places".  You could put casters on the legs to make it easier to maneuver.  Just a thought.

For what it's worth RMT - READY MADE TOYS has some really small passenger cars with matching diesels for different railroads along with some new 0-27 passenger cars for this year.  Hope this helps.  Killian

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I have the MTH/RK V1000 in L&N, and it works fine on O-27 track and switches, as do most smaller Premier and RK Diesels.  Get smaller MTH/RK 13 inch O-27 Madison or Overton passenger cars to go w/ your WBB 10 wheeler, as suggested bty Harry Doyle above, and you'll be fine

Chris, some time back we ran a competition here to build a layout on a door. One thing you might like to consider is adding an extra layer, ie have the trolley system above the heavy rail. You can fit even more action into the door size.

Here is a link to some pics of it. http://s633.photobucket.com/al...atterhorn%20Railway/

PS, don't take any notice of the scale locos on there, just for the photo fun.

I used 027 track.

I have one loop for a train, and 2 end to end bump and go trolley lines.

The pics might give you some ideas.

Thanks Mark for the feedback on the VO1000.

Dave, I did see the article on your layout and it's great.  Thx for the suggestion on going vertical.  I can see the trolley line becoming an "El" instead.

As for the s-curve (lower right, near the engine shed), I don't think it's as aggressive an s-curve as some think.  There's a full 10" straight between the Atlas O36 turnouts.  Here's a screen capture of the RR-Track simulation run with a medium steam engine and three 60' coaches going through the area in question.  Plus an SW-1500 in the shed:

Regarding H. Doyle's post about how you can run a lot of things on 0-27:

My sugestion is that if you have space, put chest-high legs on the door so that you can run, say, a "torpedo" hot metal car and it would look better than if it wasn't chest-high. I also have run said above hot metal cars on my layout's outer loop (see my post in this forum) with 0-31 curves, and they're fine.

I run mainly smaller things on 027 track, like trolley cars. MTH's SEPTA trolley from a few years ago will run on K-Line's Super Street 16" curves and not derail.

I like to use Gargraves switches because of the low profile and easy switch motor replacement. You can cut down the Gargraves switch if you need to but you lose resale value if you cut it.

Lee F.