Hello,
I am using a double track with a 42inch curve and was going to use a 40 inch , after reading I should use 2 inch or 3 inch center to center. I am going to run Walthers B&O 85 foot passenger cars. I was curious would the 3 inch spacing look silly? Thanks,
Big Mike
Depends how big the difference is but real railroads did the same thing. I don't think you will have any problems on that size radius. You can check with a couple cars on a test curve. You shouldn't have to do much. Maybe less then a 1/8" difference in the radii. The worst case is the end of a car passing the center of the other car. That is where they are closest.
MikeN8FWD Hello, I am using a double track with a 42inch curve and was going to use a 40 inch , after reading I should use 2 inch or 3 inch center to center. I am going to run Walthers B&O 85 foot passenger cars. I was curious would the 3 inch spacing look silly?
I am using a double track with a 42inch curve and was going to use a 40 inch , after reading I should use 2 inch or 3 inch center to center. I am going to run Walthers B&O 85 foot passenger cars. I was curious would the 3 inch spacing look silly?
On my double track mainline, the curves are 32" radius and the track separation is 2 1/2" on center. I run lots of Walthers 85' passenger cars, and they look pretty good to me rounding those curves.
My guess is that using 42" radius curves, you would only need, say, 2 1/4" on center separations. Nothing silly looking about that.
Rich
Alton Junction
It can depend on the equipment you run, but I have never had any trouble with 2" centers on 36" radius and above.
If you want to be safe, at 40" radius, maybe go 2-1/4" centers.
The prototype sometimes spaces parallel tracks out more than the minimums, straight or curved, depends on a lot of factors.
For our models, I have always prefered keeping the right of way as narrow as possible.
Sheldon
I wanted to retain the 2" centers of my double track main line on the curves, particularly since most of the curves on my layout were tangents on the prototype I follow
I had some old brass flex track that I was never going to use so I created three concentric circles of track on a sheet of plywood: 42" radius, 40" radius and 38" radius. I then ran (well OK, pushed with a finger) the full length Walthers passenger cars I intended to run looking for interference and potential sideswipes. 42" and 40" were fine. Maybe there are some long cars that would have issues but not the particular cars I wanted to run. 40" and 38" radius were verrrrry close and it wasn't hard to imagine that even a slight tipping of a car would create a heart-wrenching crunch.
Again holding to 2" centers worked fine with the particular equipment I intended to run. If you can scare up some swap meet flex track you might want to try doing the same experiment.
Dave Nelson
I have 36" and 38" curves on my double track mainline. I have found there is one place for a potential sideswipe with my full length passenger cars. It is the curve that has a #8 turnout on the inside curve. Theoretically this is actually a 38" radius curve. I trusted it when I laid it without actually checking it out but now I am not so sure. I laid the inside curve first and then made sure the outside curve was 2" outside that all the way around. I am a lone wolf operator so I generally don't have two trains in motion at the same time during an operating session but sometimes I just want to do continuous running and will have two trains going at once. I remember one instance when two passenger trains took that curve at the same time and the inside train grazed the one on the outside curve.
Early on in my HO scale modeling, my LHS guy gave me two 85' boxcars and told me to use them for testing purposes on curves. I don't even need to power up the layout. I just put one boxcar on each mainline curve and push them past each other in opposite directions to check for clearance.
By the time a modeler has some history, maybe even as early as a second layout construction, and with a few different locomotives and items of rolling stock, it's likely they have a good handle on what is going to cause a problem of a kind. Clunking into a carefully placed plaster 'portal' on a curve. Snagging a bridge diagonal brace with a raised pantograph. In my case, the engineer's injector overflow or the cab roof extension on one steamer, the Rivarossi H-8 Allegheny. So, I use that and my Walthers heavyweights, the longest things I own for rolling stock. I do the trials and ensure I have more than just 3mm clearance. I would like it to be somewhat realistic in scale as well....ideally. For overhead, it's the Trix GG1 with its pantograph.
With that high a minimum radius, you're not going to have much overhang even on your longest pieces of rolling stock. I had a prior HO layout that had 42" and 44" doubletrack curves with 2" separation, it had no problems.