N curves

[Anonymous]

thanks for the info I assumed it would be around 1"1/4 from rail center to rail center
beauyboy

[Adelie]

OK, then the consensus between PCarrell, Adelie and the NMRA is 1-1/4" (Actually the NMRA says 1-7/32", but what's 1/32" amongst friends).

[Anonymous]

yes I was going to use short wheel base rolling stock as the layout will be small and short cars always make a train look bigger

[pcarrell]

I was making the assumption that with 11 1/2 inch curves that we were using shorter equipment. My bad. I guess you could "try" to run a challenger or something on those curves, but it's probably going to scream "toy train" at the top of it's lungs.

You're right in that if you want to run longer equipment you will need more separation, though as your curve radius gets larger this becomes less of an issue.

[Adelie]

You can find the various standards on stuff like this on the NMRA website. For track centers, they have a version that is readable and one that is not. The link to the readable one is: http://www.nmra.org/standards/s-8tables.html .

The ultimate answer is going to depend on the length of your equipment and overhang. Based on what I saw in the table (and longer equipment is not specifically mentioned for that radius), it looks like something around 1-1/2" centers are more called for if you are using longer equipment. If not, 1-1/4" might be the ticket.

I'd probably lay out the curves temporarily and then do some testing, as P.Carrell indicated.

[pcarrell]

1 1/4 inches separation is usually good, so in your case 12 3/4 should do it. These curves are tight though so you might want to check overhangs on your rolling stock so that you don't have a sideswipe situation.

[Anonymous]

If I have a inner curve with a radius of 11.5' what should the outer curve be for an N scale curve.