06-04-2010, 01:41 PM
Gary, do you read Model Railroad Hobbyist E-mag? The first issue had an illustrated article showing how various car lengths functioned on various turn radii. I opened the issue to look over that article again. A 22 inch radius will work. in the picture in MRH on page 50 of issue #1 they show a pair of 50 foot cars on a 23 inch radius, and the caption is as follows: "The cars roll quite smoothly through the the 3x radius (radius is 3 times the actual length of the car) as predicted, although visually the curve still looks somewhat sharp." Operationally, the 22 inch radius would not be a lot different than the 23 inch radius shown in the MRH article. If I understand this part of the layout correctly, there won't be any switching here, but rather the trains will be running through a modeled neighborhood between industrial areas. It will work fine with a 22 inch radius, but visually the look of the trains might suffer a bit with the tighter radius. I would suggest that if you "hide" the trains with either two story houses, or perhaps some highly detailed three or four story apartment buildings with walls separating the yards in the neighborhood from the tracks. Put in lots of detail to draw the eyes away from the trains into the neighborhood. Also add some large trees to block the view of the tracks. I think if you do these things, the 22 inch radius in the second drawing will work fine, and you won't even notice the appearance of the cars on what will look like a tight radius.