Comments on: For Beginners – Curved Track For Your Railroad https://blog.model-train-help.com/2012/10/for-beginners-curved-track-for-your-railroad.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=for-beginners-curved-track-for-your-railroad Model railroads and model trains Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:02:01 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Wes https://blog.model-train-help.com/2012/10/for-beginners-curved-track-for-your-railroad.html#comment-2866 Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:02:01 +0000 http://blog.model-train-help.com/?p=2366#comment-2866 There was an article on how to compute your curve to give the best performance AND the best look for your layout. Basically, it said to take the length of your longest locomotive or piece of rolling stock and measure from coupler-to-coupler and, using a simple formula, determine your “curve ratio”.

The curve ratio is a factor of the rolling stock length. For instance, a HO 40 foot box is 43 scale feet over the couplers – or 5.9 actual inches (150 mm).

If you take 5.9” and multiply it by 2, you get 11.8”. Round to the nearest inch, in this case, is 12”. The 40 foot HO box cars should just barely track on a 12” radius curve. Continue computing values (below) and see the results:

HO 40 foot cars
2.0x 12” radius
2.5x 15” radius
3.0x 17” radius
3.5x 21” radius
4.0x 24” radius
5.0x 30” radius

A 40 foot HO box cars ought to track reliably on a 15” radius, and should track quite nicely on a 17” radius curve. Further, the cars will look reasonably realistic when viewed from the inside of a 21” radius curve, and look good when viewed from the outside of a 24” radius
curve.

And lastly, 40 foot HO box cars with body-mounted couplers should couple completely hands-off on 30” radius curves.

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