hello everyone. due to some space restraints I thought I would switch back to the old 4x8. I'm thinking of taking like 2 4x8's an connecting them with a few connector pieces between. This limits me to 18", 15", and 20" radius curves. However I have a few 6 axles already and i have been thinking about an SD40-2 from athearn. do you think 6 axles will work good with 18"? the 15" would be way away from the mainline so no 6 axels there. whadda think?
6 axles I run 18" radius curves and the only 6 axle i own doesn't handle 18" curves well at all. Any four axle I have handles it perfectly. Plus 20" radius allows for slighty bigger cars.
On my current plywood central (slab of plywood on sawhorses setup in the garage for testing). For testing I had 18" radius curves setup. All my current six axles locos were able perform on the 18" radius curves. These were BLI SD40-2 and AC6000 locos, Kato SD70MAC locos. That being said, not all of my rolling stock liked the 18" curves (autoracks and passenger cars).
The track I was using for setup was Atlas code 83 and another setup was Bachmann EZ Track code 100. The best advice I have is to setup some test track and see how your six axle locos behave if you have any. Otherwise, I can setup another 18" radius test loop again to make sure that I was not 100% crazy
I currently have two six-axle diesels, both Athearn - SD40 and Trainmaster - and both take 18 inch curves quite nicely. Some recently acquired Rivarossi six-axle passenger cars also take that radius well, even if they look funny doing it.
I use code 100 Bachmann EZ Track and my six axled locos fit through the 18" radius curves nicely. I have 2 Athearn U33C's, 1 Athearn U28C, 1 Kato SD40, 1 IHC 4-6-2 Pacific, 1 Mantua 4-6-2 Pacific, and 1 IHC SD40. Although they all work fine, I did have some major problems with the Model Power Amtrak cars that I had...
