LTI Std Gauge Vanderbilt & Hiawatha Track Size

I run mine on 72" radius.  Have not tried to run on anything tighter.

when I got mine, when they came out , all I had was regular standard 042 ,didn't have a problem ,now I have fastrack and run on 072 

I ran my Hiawatha on 42" diameter track.

You guys both mean DIAMETER rather than radius, right?

Cars need 72" Diameter, Engines might run on 42" diameter alone.

I only have the Hiawatha set, so far.

NJCJOE posted:

I ran my Hiawatha on 42" radius track.

Good to know, my 57” curves should be Ok depending on underhang 

steve

RoyBoy posted:

You guys both mean DIAMETER rather than radius, right?

Yup, my goof.

the Milwaukee cars would overhang more,they are longer,,,the vandy cars are retooled blue comet size cars,t

I always ran my Lionel SG Hiawatha on STD 84 track and it looked great. I had to repack the Lionel smoke unit with MTH wicking and then it did fine.

SGMA has had success running both the Vanderbilt and Hiawatha sets on our three mainlines, i.e., 42, 72, and "87".   They look and run best on the 87 mainline but will handle the 42 and 72. 

(Note: When the club was in the process of establishing the standards for our modules, based on the track available at the time, the club's original standard for the outside mainline was 84.  However, operations indicated that the spacing between the 72 and 84 mainlines was not enough to prevent some trains from hitting each other on the "curved-track" corner modules.  So after significant data collection on "underhang" and "overhang" of Standard Gauge locomotives and cars, the results showed that the club needed to increase the standard for our outside mainline from 84 to 87.  Fortunately, the owner of USA Track, Kirk Lindvig, was also SGMA's President  at that time and was able to quickly tool up to make all the 87 curved track that club members needed,  When installed this yielded modules with 7.5" tracks spacing, i.e., 42, (57), 72, and 87.  Since the change, operations have shown this spacing works.  If you need "87" curved track, contact USA Track.) 

Bob Nelson

I’ve run mine on club 72” track a few times, quite impressive. Today I ran it a few hours at a show on my 57” loop. Performed better than I expected.

Steve

Where was the show Steve? I took the twins to the California State Railroad Museum today to get our train fix. Your Hiawatha would look great on any radius in my opinion! Neat set!

POC914NUT posted:

Where was the show Steve? I took the twins to the California State Railroad Museum today to get our train fix. Your Hiawatha would look great on any radius in my opinion! Neat set!

Eric, Huntington Beach Concourse car show this Sat & Sun. Huntington Beach Central Park. Lots of rolling grass hills filled with hundreds of cars. This was our second year there and we've already been asked back for next year.

Steve