A have a couple of thoughts regarding the radii of curves and one about moveable sections.
First is the radii--I personally think anything above 36 is doable from a functioning standpoint with the RR Pennsy engine being one of the exceptions. I do have a spiral that has some 39" areas, but most of my stuff is 42-45 with easements. When it comes to the visual appearance, much depends on whether the curve if being viewed from the outside (as a oval of trackage centered in a room) or the same oval at the room's edge (shelf layout) or inside viewing. Even as a young kid seeing the whole open cab of my AF Atlantic with all it's wires leading to the tender as it rounded my figure 8, I was turned off visually. If your viewing the same thing from the other side where the chances of viewing the inside of the cab on a curve are slim, you're better off. One of the best ways to enter a room with a layout block the entrance is a Sn3 layout that Dick Karnes and I visited in Phoenix, Arizona (have your ID handy) during a Sn3 Symposium. A motorized garage door opener kit was used to raise and lower the layout section via a button. Great when you're bringing in beers for the guys and don't have any free hands. Some kind of vertical tracks kept the thing aligned. Maybe Dick can elaborate as that's all I can remember. Bob Werre > > > > > --- In [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com>, > "up148" <up...@...> wrote: > > Although I won't be able to use more than 8' of the width for the > first half of the room due to ingress and egress I should be able to > use the full 11' width for the remainder as long as I don't mind a > duck-under or lift bridge to get inside what I assume will be an > around the wall layout. > > Hi Butch, My last O scale layout had 42 inch min curves so visualizing > S scale on them seems quite good to me. The other way to look at it is > 42 inches in S scale would be equivalent to 56 inches in O scale or 31 > inches in HO so that sounds pretty broad? > The other possibility would be to design the around the wall layout to > go across the room entrance with a removable door section then you > could get about 60 inch radius minimum? I did my last O layout this > way and just left the removable section out when not running trains > and it worked great. > Either way I think you'll have a great time figuring it out and > building it and there are plenty of nice S locos that would look great > on 42 inch radius. > Regards, Dave Branum > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
