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Relic

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Nov 6, 2005
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I think I may have asked a similar question but please bare with me.
I have (from a swap meet of course) some nice Riverossi 85' passenger cars that i hated 'cause they look terrible going arround turns SO I yanked out all my 18" turns( 12x24' arround the walls shelf that varries from 8" to4' wide) and put in 22s. DIDN'T make a lick of difference!
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SO .....Should I convert to body mounted couplers or would that just pull them off (right now they still have truck mounted couplers)
HEP ME ...PLEEZ.
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From your description of your layout, it shouldn't be too difficult to put in 36" radius curves at the corners of the room. If your track is 5" out from the wall at both ends of the curve, the centre of the curve is only 20" out from the corner of the room.
To answer your question about body-mounted couplers, take a look between the cars from an overhead perspective when the train is sitting on the curve: if the shank of the coupler, where it disappears from view beneath the car, isn't close to the longitudinal centreline of the car, then body-mounted couplers will only create a different set of problems.
Long cars on any curve look better when viewed from the inside of the curve: on a tight curve, there will be excessive body overhang at the centre of the car, but the spacing between the ends of the cars will be nice and close. When viewed from the outside of a tight curve, you may notice that the near rail is exposed near the centre of the car, and the spacing between cars will be abnormally wide.
Not to discourage you, but even the one 48" radius curve on my layout doesn't do much to improve the appearance of these long cars going around it.:)
If your trains are going around your curves with no actual problems, then try installing a few scenic distractions between the viewer and the trains, like a few trees, or a building or two. Unless you're running on a club layout, too-tight turns are one of the compromises we have to accept.

Wayne
 
From experience on our clubs modular set ups I can give you some insight into radius vs 85 foot passenger cars with body mounted couplers. Our minimum radius is 36 inches, and virtually all rolling stock except large brass articulated locomotives work fine on it. But we have one problem area, we have a wye that leads from a staging yard to either direction on the mainline, but in order to make it fit, it has a section with a minimum radius of 24 inches. 85 foot passenger cars do not like the 24 inch radius at all. It is almost impossible to get a passenger train out of staging without derailing some of the cars. I think you need to make 30 inches the absolut minimum radius for your mainline, if you want reliable operation with good looks on your long cars.
 
thanks a heap you guys, I think I'm gonna go with DrWayne's idea of using view blocks.
While I have your attention, I think I will also try and find some 75' cars even though they aren't proto (it's my version of CN right?) the long cars just don't look" right" to me .
So far my passenger roster is just 4 cars, one being a 75' baggage car and they absolutly dwarf an F unit while an AB set looks silly hauling 4 cars.
You'll get a laff outa this...I finished a section about 3' long, trees bushes,, poles, rocks the whole bit. All the Freight trains wailed through this section (did I mention it has a curve) with nary a hitch .Dig the passenger consist outa storage, accross the bridge, by the cut, rollin' right along....
Who'd of thought that a little bit of painted foam rubber could cause so much damage??!!
 
Relic said:
So far my passenger roster is just 4 cars, one being a 75' baggage car and they absolutly dwarf an F unit while an AB set looks silly hauling 4 cars.
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Near the end of the passenger era before Amtrak took over passenger service, or in Canada Via Rail, the railroads would frequently service a relatively lightly used passenger service with a single E or F unit pulling a 3 or 4 car passenger train.
 
I know the idea of running four cars behind 1 F unit is realistic, but to my mind they don't LOOK realistic, it's like hauling a 40' trailer with a smart car, dig
 
Back before Amtrak took over the IC would run a big lash-up of say 4-6 locos to pull the City. Of say 4 locos I might have 2 of the 8 engines running and maybe if I was lucky I could get 2 steam generators going. Now that was funny looking!
 
Relic said:
I know the idea of running four cars behind 1 F unit is realistic, but to my mind they don't LOOK realistic, it's like hauling a 40' trailer with a smart car, dig
Click to expand...

Actually THAT would probably be an EMD model 40 pulling a passenger car! :D

Sometimes F units were drawbarred ( I believe...) so it would make sense too!
 
MilesWestern said:
Sometimes F units were drawbarred ( I believe...) so it would make sense too!
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You're right, Miles, but the railroads soon realized that the drawbars limited the units' versatility, and they were soon replaced with couplers.

Wayne
 
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