Hi, Ok, right off I'll tell you math isn't my forte. Hell, it's not even close. The depth of my layout is going to be 36" front back to front. The mainline will be running under a mountain on one side, curve around the end and swing back toward town. What would my radius curve be? If I put a dot in the middle of the board and measure the width on both sides by drawing a circle I can only go out 18" if I went out to the very edge on both sides. Does that mean I have less then an 18" radius turn for my trains? I always got this screwed up on my last layout too. Please clear this up for me. I want to do large steam and want to make sure I have enough of a curve to make it look good. Regards
Hi, Sorry about that. It's n scale and after doing even more searching I think I need 22" radius curves to run the yellowstones, mallets, and big boys. My layout is only 36" deep by 8' length with a 2' by 4' section on the end for roundhouse, shops etc. Please let me know if I got this right.
Since curves are measured at the center line of the track, an 18" curve would have the track at the ends of the curve laying half off the layout. You need to reduce that radius by the half the width of your track, plus some measure for safety (you don't want a locomotive to roll over at the end of the curve and directly off the side of the layout and onto the floor). In N scale, I'd really go for nothing more than a 16" radius - and use a build up fascia or some some form of barrier (e.g., track running through a cut) on the edge to prevent an accident from turning into an expensive disaster. There's no way to get a 22" radius semi-circle into 36' wide surface. If you really have your heart set on the higher radius locomotives, the best you can do is go for a kind of waterwing-shaped layout, where the ends are wider than the center - probably about 48" wide.
Well we got to revise the layout without having to move the room around and having to climb over the couches to sit down. lol I'm able to add on another 4x8 sheet to my 8x 36" one. That way I can run the long haul trains from the frieght yard/ roundhouse/shops on the 36" sheet down the side of the wall which should measure out to be about 20' and then around the curve on the 4x8 sheet and back around in a oval or back to the freightyard. I'm hoping that the 4'x8' will give me the radius curves I'm looking for.
If you already have the engine, play with track arrangements now while you can. Use tiny track nails driven into the track tie holes, if they are there, and lay different arrangements of curve radii and test the engine in forward and reverse. Mind clearances with the cab and the pilot. Place objects at the apexes of curves where they are apt to be the sharpest radius, and snug them up toward the rails until you make contact. You can use light cardboard boxes, empty pop tins, and so on. Mark where the distance lies and remember to adhere to that later. Don't forget to do this for bridge abutments and tunnel portals.
Thanks for the reminder on swing outs. Haven't done this in so long it's easy to forget things like that. I'm hoping to get the 4x8 frame bench done this week and then put down the boards. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to get rid of my work bench to make the larger layout. I'll be working on my grandfathers antique desk. He is prob. rolling over in his grave just having me think of it. One of the the large curves on the end of the board will be under a logging mountain so I can have plenty of room for it. The other end will be pretty clear for it but, I'm thinking of doing an "S" switch track that will go over the larger curve and swing back into the 8'x 36" track. That way there will be a track running to the larger board and a seperate track running back to the freightyard. In this way I can also have it run through downtown on it's way to the roundhouse. I've seen that done in one utube vid and really like the look of it.
Growler: A caveat and learned the hard way here. How long are your arms? Do you have a beer belly or are you pregnant? Is the layout free standing or against a wall? 36" is about 6" too deep for ease in working on track, ballast, scenery, backdrop, and about everything else involved. Even with using a platform, it is a long reach. If humanly possible, try to stick with 30" depth unless you have access to the top from under the layout for these tasks. See what you can rig up with a couple of saw horses set to the projected height of the layout and start bending over to reach all areas.
I know what you mean on the stretch to reach across but, I'm 6' with about 4' long arms. lol Not really but, sometimes I think I'm part monkey. The reach isn't too far out especially on the 36" board. The base is only 29" high at the top of the frame and I'll be building up from there. So it sits pretty low on average compared to many layouts. I wanted mine more on an eye lvl when we are sitting on the couches. The back is against a wall that is more a low shelf lvl below the windows. There is about a two inch ledge that sticks out over the layout, which I can't do anything about unfortunately, but, lets me hold on to something stable. The wall side will be flat or have rocky buttes along it. There will not be much involvement with that area. Same with the back side of the 4x8 sheet which will be on the left side of the layout. I plan on putting a mountain on the left side of it with access to the very back left side in case of a derailment inside of the mountain. Or I might even cut out a couple large arm holes in the base so I can reach up in there and grab anything. I'm using a 3/4" ply to sit on an open center bench. I will have open access under the table and I am doing another 3/4" shelf under the table top so I can lay on it. I did the same for my partners Lionel setup and it worked really good. I could climb on top without any sagging (I'm only about 150lbs) and I can lay on the shelf without that sagging too. My other half just turned 65 so doesn't have the flexibility as I do but, I'm there to help with anything. I will also be the one who builds about 90% of it.
BTW, speaking of shelves..... If you can sneak 10" depth along the walls (behind a couch or on top of whatever else, you can easily get a 22" radius curve around a corner on two right angle 10" shelves. (The radius is 22", grid is 6")
I wanted to do exactly that. The ledge is about a foot wide and runs the whole length of the room which is about 26' feet or so and then goes to the right and meets up with the fireplace. I bought a bunch of the track only to realise that our custom made curtains came down to about 1/2 inch above the ledge! DOH Also, with the curtains there it limited the houses and such so it kind of came to a dead end. The family room is pretty darn big and kind of L shaped. Well, more like an F with the little - removed.
There would be no point in building this without the required 22" curves to allow your loco of choice to run on it. I suggest you build the shelf, but add blobs at each end to facilitate the larger curves. To be safe I would go with 50" at the blobs to allow for the 22" radius plus easements to make it look that much more slick when they slink into the curve. It does sound big, but you will be more satisfied.
Wouldn't my 4'x8' give me the 22" from center to each side to run the larger loco's? If I'm reading the others correctly it would 48" total and 44" from the inside of the track. That would give me a couple inches to make them even more gradual without having to go right to the edge of the board. The add on part to the end of the 4x 8 is 36"x 8 feet. It will have two lines running from the roundhouse down at that end so there will be a line to and from. I just use the turntable to swing the engine around and switch out a couple cars and run back or do a oval and stay on the 4x8 board.
I'm tall and my layout is 3' across, it isn't a deal-breaker for me. That said, a 36" board gives you a 16" radius with a couple inches on every side. If you're really set on running engines that will derail on 16" curves (which is CRAZY) you should probably either join an Ntrak club or else get a job with a bank so you can collect a nice taxpayer-funded bonus and build an MR-style basement empire...
Ok...my layout is going to be in n scale. The 36" board will mainly be freightyard, city, turntable and roundhouse. The larger engines will just start from down on that end of the room and run down to the 4x8 sheet to do any major curves and mainly stay down on that end. If I bring them back to the freightyard, it will be to disconnect, run the engine seperately and run the cars to different tracks and bring out a different loco. Woudn't mind having a job with the rich back system though. lol
